


Devil for Sale

by Taranea



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Slavery, Canon-events still happen, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Foggy is the worst slave owner ever, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Matt still is Daredevil, also, slave!Matt, tries his best
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-08
Updated: 2018-05-05
Packaged: 2018-05-12 13:56:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 55,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5668480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taranea/pseuds/Taranea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Franklin 'Foggy' Nelson, in the hope of a present and reward for his undergrad degree, has been petitioning his parents for a StarkPad for *months* now. </p>
<p>He’s actually pretty sure he’s worn them down, too - ‘I’m moving out now, mom’, he has wheedled, ‘I’m gonna need a mobile tablet PC to carry around campus with me and stuff’. </p>
<p>Not just moving out, oh no. Going to *Columbia* for a law degree, yessir. And finally living, by himself, like a grown-up and showing his parents what a responsible adult he can be. </p>
<p>Judging by the 'present' he *does* get, it turns out that his parents apparently neither think he needs a StarkPad, nor that he could keep himself alive if he tried. </p>
<p>Or: The Story where Foggy involuntarily gets a blind slave called Matt as a study-aid and finds out he has bitten off way more than he can chew.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. PLEASE Tell me you kept the receipt

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a kinkmeme prompt and promptly gotten out of hand.

"...mom.”  
  
“Look, darling-“  
  
_“Mom.”_  
  
“If you’ll just let me _explain_ -“  
  
“MOM! WHY!”  
  
“Look, I know he’s blind but he can cook and clean and he’ll even help you study. He’s got a Bachelor’s from his last owner, they had him as a study aid as well as a house slave. He’ll make sure you have clean clothes and are well fed, living on your own.” Anna Nelson gives Foggy a hopeful look that gives her son an immediate toothache. Something she said caught his attention, though, because -  
  
Foggy looks up from the ownership papers with a frown. “His old owner paid for a degree but sold him?”  
  
That was unusual. Not the degree itself - there were slaves out there with PhDs, why not train them for six figure jobs when you didn’t have to give them a cent of it? Companies saved millions training slaves these days. But even though slave tuition was cheaper, it wasn’t _that_ cheap and it was odd to have one just as a study partner and not keep them for the eventual income they’d provide.  
  
His mother smiles. “Their loss is your gain, darling.”  
  
“I’m _not_ taking him!” Foggy snaps, angry again. “Mom, did it escape you that I _hate_ the slavery system? That I'm becoming a lawyer specifically to _help_ people in that situation?"  
  
“And you can do all that when you actually have your degree darling,” his mother says in the unmoved tone all mothers learn to employ, and that informs their kids they’d have more success yelling at a brick wall. “The papers are in your name already,” she adds, “And I’m not going back to the market, so you either take him or sell him yourself.”  
  
Foggy’s hand clenches around the stupid documents and his mother gives him a victorious smile. They both know he loathes the slave markets. And his mother has probably guessed, correctly so, that between owning or selling, he would choose keeping a slave as the lesser of the two evils.  
  
Foggy wonders how many slave owners started like that.  
  
He sighs.  
  
“What’s his name?”  
  
His mother’s smile is infuriatingly triumphant. “Name him whatever you want, darling. He’s yours now.”  
  
xxx  
  
The most-decidedly-not-a-StarkPad is still standing in the living room where he’d been left after Foggy had dragged his mother into the hall to find out why exactly he'd been presented with a goddamn freaking _person_ as a graduation present. Foggy approaches wearily – the slave is clad in the grey jumpsuit people – people! – are usually sold in, including worn-down shoes. He is also wearing a pair of rickety, taped-together sunglasses that make it hard to get a read on his expression. . Foggy tries to collect himself. Okay. He can do this. He just happens to be a slave owner now, something he never wanted to be, and is responsible for the well-being of another person, absolutely NO problem at all.  
  
(Foggy tries not to remember that he managed to accidentally kill his pet cactus in primary school.) 

Foggy swallows.  
  
“Uh, hey. Do... do you have a name?”  
  
“You can call me whatever you wish, sir,” he replies immediately, with a small bow of his head, the padlocked metal collar around his neck clinking softly.  
  
“Okay... what if I wish to call you what you want to be called?”  
  
The slave’s mouth twitches slightly at that and for a second Foggy thinks he is going to smile but it’s gone just as quickly.  
  
“My previous owner called me Dean.”  
  
Foggy almost rolls his eyes but stops because he thinks it might be a little rude. Then he internally rolls them again at that thought, because, _blind_.  
  
“Do you want me to call you Dean?”  
  
He expects another evasive non-answer (that slave might make a good lawyer too) but is pleasantly surprised when he tilts his head slightly and says, “I like ‘Matt’.”  
  
“Matt it is, then,” Foggy announces. “Oh, I’m smiling by the way.'  
  
The slave looks surprised and for a second Foggy thinks he'll get an _actual_ smile, but after a moment he simply bows his head again.  
  
“As you wish, sir.”  
  
Xxx  
  
He remembers the day they locked the heavy metal collar around his neck. The day Matthew Michael Murdock ceased to be and slave number 10-4-1964 had been registered.  
  
He became Rory shortly after. The small daughter of his first family had named him. She had been nice, her father less so. They’d sold him after four months, when the wife got too jealous.  
  
Then Dean. For four years, during his time as a study aid, when he was owned by Mark - who was actually a sort of decent owner. He treated 'Dean' like any of the other things he owned, he gave him orders, locked his collar to the wall when he left him alone, lent him to his friends if they need a helping hand and occasionally fucked him or used him for a quick blowjob.  
  
Mark was also never cruel. 'Dean' was only beaten if he disobeyed or made a mistake, and when he was sick Mark took him to the doctor and let him recover; sometimes he even bought food his slave liked for their room.  
  
(And after that, for three weeks before he was sold to Mrs Nelson, there was Lester. Three weeks that ended with his knuckles raw and bloody and the sirens and…the less said about Lester, the better.)  
  
(Lester had called him 'bitch', and that wasn't a name at all.)  
  
No, by now he is almost used to 'Dean', no matter how much he despised it simply because it wasn’t his.  
  
He straightens as he remembers his training. _It’s your owner's decision on what to call you. A slave owns nothing. Not their clothes, their body, their name._  
  
His new owner is Franklin Philip Nelson.  
  
His name is Mr. Nelson’s decision. But Mr. Nelson had asked him to choose and...  
  
A slave owns _nothing_.  
  
Matt has his name back. That is something.

**xxx**

“Um. How about a shower first?” Foggy tries, attempting very hard not to let the words ‘You stink like you died in a car last month’ leave his mouth at the same time. He knows it’s probably not the slave’s fault which condition he’s in. Currently he’s wearing the slightly smelly, grey clothes most slaves are sold in, and, probably due to his condition, he’s also equipped with a pair of taped-together sunglasses. Foggy thinks there was something about a cane that’s supposed to be shipped to him at some point, but currently Matt is standing in his living room cane-less, although his hands look like he’d like to have something to fiddle with. 

“If you would like me to,” Matt says, ducking his head and again using that bland, servile tone that kind of creeps Foggy out a little bit. “Will you be joining me, or…?” 

“No. No! No, you can do that on your own, right?!” Foggy panics a little, and kind of throws himself into the bathroom door in an attempt to open it. “Here. Here is the bathroom. The shower is in the right corner when you get in. Left is cold, warm is right, have fun.” 

Matt slowly makes his way toward his voice, hand trailing along the corridor wall. “Okay,” he says. “Do you want me to put my clothes back on afterwards?” 

Foggy decides that Matt is going to be the death of him, and he blames his mother. 

“Oh. Um. Yeah, I suppose they could do with a wash, right?” He gives a miserable laugh. “Just leave them on the floor, I’ll get them and get you a pair of sweatpants to wear when you get out.” 

When he enters the room later to exchange the clothes, when Matt is in the shower and not even seems to react to his presence invading, he very purposefully does _not_ look at the naked slave in the cubicle. 

Foggy is _so_ glad Matt can’t hear the pace of his heartbeat or anything. 

xxx

“Er. Right. Let’s go to my room, then,” Foggy says (unsuccessfully) trying to not stare at Matt’s bare chest after he’s emerged from the bathroom, hair damp and skin flushed (he is _ogling_ his _slave_ here, and if that wasn’t enough to make him majorly uncomfortable, his _mother_ is in the next room-) “It’s upstairs, and the, uh, stair case is like two steps in front of you, and maybe…thirty? degrees to the right-“

“Most people just grab me by the arm if they want me anywhere,” Matt interrupts him, softly, but then immediately stiffens, as if realizing what he just did. “I’m sorry. Sir. Please punish me as you see fit,” he says, but the words sound grating and stiff, as if someone had made him repeat them so often until they were a hated, but natural response. 

“I, uh. I’m not going to punish you just for _speaking_ ,” Foggy manages, adding in his head, _or ever, if I can help it._ “And please. Call me ‘Foggy’, everything else is just…weird.” 

Again, Matt gives him what would probably be a curious look if he could see, but then just nods. “Understood.” Then he holds out his left arm, slightly, as if it were an offering to appease an angry god. “If you still want me in your room…” 

“Um.” Foggy eloquently says again, and now he can _feel_ himself blushing. “Can’t imagine it being that comfortable to be yanked around by your arm,” he forces out. “Do you want to hold on to mine?” He has seen someone leading a blind person like that in a movie, once, and begs that the almighty university of Hollywood won’t let him down on this. He gently extends his own elbow to bump into Matt’s bare forearm, so he knows where it is and can grab on if he wants to.

The startled look on the other man’s face doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the sudden touch. 

“...yes. Thank you, sir,” Matt says, lifting his hand a little, brushing fingers across Foggy’s forearm until his grip, feather-light and tentative, as if he doesn’t know whether he’s even allowed that much contact, settles in the crook of his elbow. And then there’s a slight intake of breath when he seems to realize what he just said. “Oh. I’m sorry for using the wrong address again, please punish me as-“ 

“No. No, that’s fine, there’s gonna be no punishing whatsoever, really, I just wanna get upstairs before my _mother_ comes to check on us,” Foggy pleads, trying to slowly get moving toward the stairs, breathing a relieved sigh when Matt on his arm seems to follow along easily enough. “And really, I _want_ you to call me Foggy, but if it takes you a while to remember and get there, that’s okay, too.“

At this, Matt actually seems to give him a little frown. “I _can_ obey orders,” he says, and there seems to be a hint of offended pride in his voice, as if Foggy had called him stupid. It’s a brief flash of personality behind the meek and servile demeanour, and Foggy can’t help but be intrigued despite himself. 

“Never said you couldn’t, buddy. Just that you don’t need to, right now,” he tries, going for a soothing tone. “Stairs start here, by the way.” 

Again, that little surprised expression (that thankfully seems to wipe the small downturn of his lips away – god, Foggy doesn’t know whether that’s a blind thing, but this slave – _Matt_ , Foggy reminds himself, he is called Matt, he has a _name_ he wants to be called by – Matt’s face seems to be showing any single little emotion he feels so openly, Foggy doesn’t know what to do with it) and then Matt nods, and starts to climb the first step. 

“Thank you.” 

“Don’t mention it. I have no idea what I’m doing. Am I doing this guiding thing right?” 

“Well, I haven’t walked into any walls yet,” Matt replies, and then almost freezes next to Foggy. “I’m sorry-“ 

“It’s alright,” Foggy cuts him off, his tone weary but his heart actually pounding a bit faster than usual. “I, um. Actually thought that was kinda funny.”

“Oh,” Matt replies, but then also doesn’t seem to know what else to say, so they awkwardly shuffle up to Foggy’s room in silence. 

“Here,” Foggy says as he opens the door to his little kingdom, kind of wishing that the first time he brought a hot, half-naked person in here it wouldn’t be someone who _legally belonged to him_ , “Bed is three steps in front of you, if you sit down on it, I’ll get you some more clothes.” 

Matt nods, releasing his arm and walking forward surprisingly steady, even without guidance or cane. Foggy briefly wonders whether that is because he is just a very fearless person, or whether he still thinks that Foggy would punish him if he didn’t obey instantly. 

Then all thoughts fly from Foggy’s head the instant he sees Matt from behind. 

“Holy – what happened to your _back_?!” 

Matt stops in his movement, coming to a standstill in front of Foggy’s bed. His right hand closes into a fist for a moment, but then he seems to consciously relax himself again. 

“A punishment,” he says, head turned over his shoulder. “I received it just before I was sold. It should heal soon.” 

“Yeah. Yeah, no, doesn’t look like it,” Foggy says, tonelessly, still staring at the absolute mess of thin, scabby wounds, some of them obviously slightly oozing again after the water of the shower must have aggravated them, and the older scars beneath. He isn’t quite sure how Matt is moving as gracefully as he does instead of being stiff as board with pain. The thin, bloody stripes (Whip? Cane? Foggy has absolutely no reference which instrument could have inflicted this damage and hopes he never _has_ to develop one) extend all the way down Matt’s back and disappear beneath the waist band of his oversized sweat pants. Foggy realizes he has no idea how far the damage goes. 

“Your mother _did_ get me out of the bargain bin,” Matt points out. 

And then, because the entire situation is so surreal it couldn’t become weirder if either of them turned into a melting clock, Foggy can’t help but blurt out “Oh god, that is _so_ her,” and then he suddenly can’t help but give a (slightly hysterical) giggle, because everything else would probably mean crying. Matt has half-turned into his direction again, and he seems a trifle alarmed at Foggy’s reaction – even if the edges of his own mouth are, interestingly, twitching _again_ – but then he appears to clamp down on that, sharply, and ducks his head. 

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply – they’ll stop bleeding soon. If you don’t want me staining your clothes-“ 

“What – no! This isn’t what this is about, Jesus.” Foggy runs a hand over his face. “I’m so sorry, I am talking complete nonsense. God. You better lie down on the bed. On your front.” 

Matt nods, as if he had expected that order. “Of course. Do you want me to take my clothes off myself or-“ 

Foggy starts at the question for a second, until it dawns on him what Matt has likely to be thinking. He shakes his head wildly (for all the good that does when talking to _a blind person_ , Nelson, great going). “Wha – no!” he blurts. “I mean.” He clears his throat. “That isn’t…I want to _clean up your wounds_ , Matt, not, not have _sex_ with you.” 

( _Sex_ , a voice at the back of his head scoffs. _No matter what the law says, that would be rape, and you know it._ ) 

No, he is not denying that Matt is extremely attractive, and that the sight of him barely clothed in his bed room does things to him. But then, there is also the sight of his _collar_ , and the sight of his tense, wary body language, and the sight of his _wounds_ , and that takes Foggy more quickly out of any aroused mind set than a bucket of cold water. 

Matt tilts his head again at his flustered denial, seems to study him for a minute as if listening to something, but then again simply turns back to the bed, climbs atop it with more graceful movements than he should be able to perform, and lies down flat on his front. He still doesn’t look _relaxed_ , exactly, but less like he is expecting Foggy to hit him any moment now, so Foggy will take what little victories he can get. 

“I’ll be right back,” he says, basically fleeing his room to look for disinfection spray, salves and bandages in the bath room, and hoping he doesn’t run into his mother on the way there, because he has a _lot_ of feelings to sort out right now. 

To be continued...


	2. My Mom Always Wanted Me To Be A...Nurse?

“Okay.” Foggy has been standing in front of the door to his own room for what feels like ten minutes now, clutching the first aid kit and several creams and ointments, and trying to work up the courage to go in there again. What finally pushes him is the thought that Matt is still in there, still waiting, still in pain, and that as his owner is his _responsibility_ now and _fuck_. 

Foggy goes in. 

Matt is still lying on the bed, curiously not startled in the least from Foggy’s sudden entrance, and doesn’t seem to have moved at all. He has his cheek pillowed on his hands, head turned sideways so the metal collar isn’t digging into the skin of his neck. Foggy makes an absent-minded note to replace that thing at some point, but now there are more pressing concerns. 

“I’m going to disinfect your wounds first,” he warns Matt as he sits down next to him. “That might sting.” 

“I’ll be fine,” Matt replies, and, worryingly, he actually seems to be. He startles when Foggy’s hand gently settles on an uninjured patch of skin on his hip to steady him, but when the part that’s actually hurting him, i.e., the disinfection happens, he almost seems to relax into the pain. 

Foggy tries not to think about what it implies when someone is startled by _gentle_ touches, not painful ones. 

There is silence in the room while Foggy wipes off the disinfectant around the wounds and then dresses them as best as he can. As he works, the pattern keeps repeating, Matt’s muscles flinching and tensing under Foggy’s hands every time he touches him, and then relaxing into his ministrations, almost like soothing a spooked animal. Matt has taken off his glasses after he’s been ordered to lie down on the bed, and, even if for him it has to make little difference on whether his eyes are open or not, Foggy wonders whether him closing them might be the first, minute sign of trust. 

“Okay,” Foggy says, breaking the silence after he’s done all he thinks he can. “Are there….” He forces himself to take another breath. “Are there more wounds beneath your pants?” 

Matt has opened his eyes again after Foggy spoke, but still does not seem as ill-at-ease as he previously was. “Yes,” he says, cautiously. “Do you want to dress them, too?” 

“Only….” Foggy swallows. “Only if you want me to. This is your body. You should decide what happens to it.” 

Matt gives his left ear an incredulous stare. 

“You _own_ me,” he points out. 

“And I don’t want anything happening to you that you don’t want happening to you,” Foggy replies calmly, because this is an easy turnabout by now. “So. Do you want me to have a look at the rest of you, or do you want the first aid kit and I’ll leave the room so you can try to sort yourself out…?” 

Again, it takes a moment while Matt apparently computes the question. This time, though, it seems less like he has trouble believing what Foggy says and more like he’s fighting an internal battle, brow furrowed and shoulders tense. But then there is a noticeable slump to his body’s tension, as if he’s giving up a fight he has no chance of winning. 

“Stay. Please,” he says, voice small. “I’ll…you _can_ use me, if you want to, I don’t mind-“ 

“Yeah, not happening,” Foggy says, curtly. “But if you want me to take a look at those wounds, take off your pants and I’ll see what I can do.” 

Xxx

Matt fully naked, as it turns out, looks more than twice as attractive than Matt half-naked (Foggy thinks the math is somehow not checking out here) but, again, any attraction he could have felt during the moment is dampened into non-existence by the damage that is obvious to see. On instinct, Foggy had even turned around while Matt was taking off the sweat pants, waiting until he could hear him lying down on the bed again. (He had felt stupid, of course, it wasn’t like Matt could actually _see_ the gesture, but it had still felt _right_ – slaves were hardly ever allowed to keep any modesty, and Foggy would have felt dirty if he had treated Matt like this from the start). 

Now, though, the back of Matt’s lower body is on full display and it’s just as bad as the upper half. Worse, even. 

Foggy sees blood crusting from a place it really shouldn’t be coming from. 

“Fuck,” he whispers under his breath, and maybe Matt’s hearing is sharper than other people’s, because he flinches as if Foggy had yelled it. 

“It’s – it’s okay, I’ll heal –“ 

_No, no, nothing about this is okay_ , the voice in Foggy’s head keeps yelling, and of course he _knows_ what slaves are used for, everyone is aware of what’s going on in a lot of slave owners’ houses, it’s legal, but – but suddenly coming face to face with it is something different entirely. 

“No,” Foggy chokes out, suddenly having difficulty to get air. “No, this isn’t _okay_ , Matt.”

At his words, Matt goes rigid again, even the last fragments of relaxation gone. When he speaks, his voice is clipped and controlled. 

“I am sorry this slave isn’t up to your standards, sir,” he says. “I will do my best to appeal to the desired aesthetic more in the future.” 

Foggy stares. He now knows that a) whatever undergrad degree his last owner made Matt get apparently either had something to do with English or with interpreting everything anyone ever said in the worst way possible and b) for next Christmas, he is getting his mother something horrible. 

For the moment, though, he forces himself to remain calm. “No, Matt, this – this isn’t what I meant. I meant it’s not okay anyone did that to you. Did anything that you didn’t want them to.” 

Matt blinks at this. It occurs to Foggy that he isn’t actually doing much to escape a stereotype of a typical slave owner here – it’s Matt’s first night with him, and he has him lying naked and collared next to him on the bed while he himself is fully clothed, and inspecting him like damaged goods – but dammit, he’s _trying_ here! It’s not his fault the universe seems to hate him. 

“That is…a kind notion,” Matt says, and he sounds just as polite and distant as when he first spoke to him in the living room. “But it’s fine. Pity is not required.” 

And oh, thinks Foggy, _oh_. 

“It’s not pity, Matt,” he says quietly. “It’s anger. I’m angry. Because even if doing this to you is legal, it certainly isn’t _justice_.” 

Beneath his hands, he swears he can feel Matt’s heart beat skip a beat. 

“You…think so?” Matt manages, for the first time his voice actually sounding unsteady. 

“Mh-hmm. I’m actually planning to become a lawyer for stuff like this. Maybe even specialize in slavery law.” He pauses when he sees Matt’s expression. “What, didn’t mom tell you she wants you to be my study aid?” 

“…no. She didn’t,” Matt says, but he still sounds a bit bowled over. “That’s…actually…” he seems to want to say something more, but then blinks again, and whatever he meant to say is apparently swallowed back down. “Alright. I can do that.” 

“Great,” Foggy says, and is actually surprised at how the enthusiasm in his voice somehow doesn’t seem to be entirely faked. “So. Are you okay with me taking care of the rest of your cuts?” 

“Yes.” Matt nods, then swallows and adds quietly, “Please.” 

“Okay,” Foggy says, and there is a repeat performance of him sterilizing and patching up cut skin, only he imagines that this time, it might take Matt not quite as long to relax into his touches. Foggy thinks he still tenses when he gets close to any sensitive areas, but he carefully avoids those and then, later, when Matt is awkwardly shuffling back into the oversized sweatpants and shirt Foggy has extracted from the chaos in his drawers, he takes his hand to press two of the salves into it. “And here, uh. This is a disinfectant, and this one is supposed to numb and, er, heal. If you want to. Apply. Some of it yourself, in the bathroom.” He stumbles through his offer. “If you want to, we can also go to the hospital tomorrow?“ 

Matt, now fully clothed and wearing his sunglasses again, tilts his head. “I…would rather not go to any hospitals, if you don’t mind.” 

“Alright,” Foggy nods, because this is what he’s trying to do, right? Give Matt some autonomy over himself back. “Just tell me if it doesn’t heal or gets worse, right? Because, you know, I’m so not qualified to deal with any of this.” 

Again, Matt seems to weigh his answer before he speaks (Foggy wonders whether, perhaps, impulsiveness might have been what has him gotten those stripes on his back), but when he does reply, it _almost_ looks like he’s smiling. 

“It’s probably not my place to say,” he says, “but I think you’re a lot more qualified than anyone _I_ ever met.” 

xxx

Later on, Matt can’t believe how he could have been so reckless. Telling his owner what _he_ thought of _him_? He could have been whipped for less. 

Only Foggy doesn’t seem to be interested in whipping him. Instead, he is busy setting up a sort of futon on the floor next to his bed. Matt had tried to help, at first, but was quickly shooed back onto a chair. ‘You’re still injured, buddy. Let me do the heavy lifting for the next few days, okay?’ Foggy had asked. “Also, I’ll have you know that this futon has pink flower print on it, because it belonged to my older sister, but they are _very manly_ flowers, okay?” he asks, and Matt actually has to (not very successfully) suppress a surprised giggle at the ridiculous statement. He’s never belonged to an owner who made _jokes_. 

(Well. Not any jokes that were meant for him to laugh about, anyway.) 

“Okay, futon’s all set up,” Foggy says. “Feel free to crawl in and knock yourself out. I put out some washing stuff and a toothbrush on the right side of the sink, three feet behind you. Sorry for not having an actual bed for you, but there’ll be one when we move into our dorm room.” 

Huh. It actually does seem like being fucked is not on the agenda tonight – Matt tries to suppress a feeling of gratitude for what should be basic human decency when someone has a back that is torn to shreds, but he doesn’t quite succeed; there is a part of him that apparently saw Foggy, and then decided to _like_ him, to hope for kindness from him when experience tells him that this is an absolutely ridiculous notion. 

“Thank you,” he says instead, not quite managing his usual polite but distant tone, voice wavering just a little. He trails along the wall over to the sink, brushing his teeth with the first actual tooth paste in what must have been a million years, enjoying how the sharp peppermint flavour burns away any residue of the cheap slave kibble they’d been feeding him at the seller’s place. He is probably just going to get more of the stuff tomorrow, but maybe it will be one of the more expensive brands, he hopes. 

“Alright. I’m going to turn out the light. Um, and you _totally_ need to know that because, because…if I walk into you now, that’s probably why?” Foggy tries to salvage a point to his narration, and Matt can’t help but give an (unseen) grin. 

“I’ll try to keep out of your way, sir.” 

Foggy huffs out a laugh. “Yeah. And feel free to kick me if I start sleepwalking or anything,” he says as Matt crawls into his futon and tries to make himself as comfortable as he can with a flayed backside. But the mattress is softer than anything he’s used to and it’s a relief not to have to sleep on the floor. 

“Matt?” Foggy’s voice already sounds sleepy, and Matt is surprised that he actually doesn’t automatically tense at his name this time. It does sound almost… _nice_ when Foggy says it. 

“Yes?” 

“I hope…I really hope you have a good night. I mean, I know…I know this isn’t ideal. And I know you have no reason to trust anything I say,” he swallows. “But I just…I just want to tell you that I’ll try to do this _right_ ,” he says, and his tone has an unusual amount of conviction behind it, as if he really means what he says. “And by ‘right’ I don’t mean whatever left you looking like that. More like the opposite. Matt, if I could, I would – ” he stops himself there, like he’s not even sure himself what he wanted to say there. Matt is lying on his futon, tense like a whip, as if just by listening harder he might be able to catch the unspoken words. If his owner could, he’d do _what_? 

But Foggy only sighs, and that seems to be it. “Sorry. You must be hella tired and I’m keeping you awake. We’ll talk more in the morning, alright?” Foggy is turned toward him, but Matt has no idea whether the residual light in the room is enough for Foggy to see him. But his voice sounds soft as if he could when he says, “Good night, Matt.” 

“Good night…Foggy,” Matt manages, now halfway convinced that he _is_ actually already dreaming. 

_To be continued..._


	3. Waking Up

Matt wakes up to the sound of arguing. That…is not a good sign. People arguing always, always mean that the loser of the argument is going to take it out on the pet, take it out on _him_ , and Matt really doesn’t feel in the condition to take another punishment so soon. 

_Bullshit. You’ve been in worse shape, and you know it,_ flashes through his mind, and as always, Matt jerks awake at the familiar, unkind voice and his brain and senses come crashing online, flooding him with a deluge of information and memory that he has to sort through as he tries to make sense of his surroundings. 

Sold. Yeah, right, he had been sold yesterday and now he was in his new owner’s – Foggy, he’d wanted Matt to call him _Foggy_ of all things – bed room, on a futon. 

Only Foggy wasn’t in here with him…and huh, that was strange, Matt honestly would have expected him to kick – well, okay, maybe not kick, Foggy didn’t seem to be violent type – but at the very least prod him with a foot to wake him and maybe put him to work preparing breakfast or something. 

Only…Matt sniffs, briefly – breakfast is already cooking downstairs, eggs, ham and buck wheat toast. And someone must have opened a glass of marmalade. He tries to forcibly suppress the growl of his stomach at the smell. Yeah, he hadn’t eaten for almost twenty-four hours now, but that still wasn’t the worst he’d ever been through. Worse is only ever getting slave kibble, when you could smell what everybody _else_ was eating, three rooms and two storeys over. 

He sits up, gritting his teeth against the urge to wince. His injuries do feel slightly better than they did last night; it’s been some time since he’s been properly patched up after a punishment. There’s a small spark of gratefulness he feels for that for Foggy, but tries to suppress instantly – after all, there is nothing worse than getting _attached_ to an owner, he had learned that much. 

Not like that will be difficult, when Foggy undoubtedly will administer his first disciplinary measure (whatever it is) when he comes back upstairs again, angry from the fight he’s having with his mother downstairs. Not particularly caring, but still curious, Matt tilts his head slightly as he listens in, anyway – it’s also not like he has anything else to do. 

“…you insane?! Did you _see_ his back, mom, did you? They nearly took his skin off, it’s _sick_!” 

_Ah_. Matt gives a wry grimace. Of course. Complaining about his state, what else. 

“Franklin, I swear I didn’t know, they didn’t tell me, and he seemed _fine_ -“ 

“Mom, I can’t – I had to patch him up, yesterday, and the way he looked at me, as if he was _grateful_ for something that shouldn’t…shouldn’t….” 

Franklin (Foggy, you’re supposed to call him Foggy), is taking deep breaths now, probably trying to calm himself down – yup, heart rate elevated, Matt nods to himself. He is a bit surprised that he can already track Foggy through the building, but then again, they had spent quite a bit of time together yesterday, and none of it had been overwhelming or seriously painful for Matt, so he’d been able to catalogue everything about Foggy quite well. That was…new. Matt carefully decides not to dwell on it. 

“Franklin,” his mother says, “that is a normal way to discipline slaves. You’ve seen that he acts quite docile now, doesn’t he? That is probably what made him such a well-behaved boy.” 

“ _Bullshit_ ,” Foggy seethes downstairs. “That’s not…I wouldn’t _ever_ -“ He takes another deep breath. “Fine. You wanna give me a slave, fine. So, as long as he is mine,” Foggy says, and Matt concentrates _hard_ at this point, so he can hear the air part as Foggy jabs a finger into his mother’s face, “No one is ever going to touch him like that. Is that clear?”

There’s a sigh from his mother’s end. “Yes, dear, if that’s what you want. But you should read the owner’s manual I got you, anyway. If – or _when_ you run into difficulties with him at Columbia, you’ll probably be glad to have it.” 

“Yeah, so I can _light it on fir_ e when the heating is out,” Foggy grunts, and Matt can hear him stomp out of the kitchen and toward his room again. He panics for a moment – doesn’t know whether he should pretend to still be sleeping, or whether Foggy would want him to be up and dressed, or up and _un_ dressed, so when the door flies open and Foggy crashes into his room in a thunderous mood, he is presented with one slave, too-large sweatshirt half over his head, flat on his face in the room with his feet hopelessly still tangled in the futon. 

“Uh…morning, sir?” Matt manages. 

xxx

“Um. Morning,” Foggy says. There’s a bit of a tremble to his voice that suggests he is trying not to laugh at the ridiculous picture his blind, clumsy slave must present right now – and hey, usually laughing owners don’t hit you, so it’s not that hard for Matt to swallow his annoyance at this new loss of dignity. God knows he’s had worse. 

_And hey_ , a long, long-forgotten voice at the back of his mind suggests. _You would have found this funny, once._

“Er, I’m sorry if I startled you. Do you…need help?” Foggy swallows, sounding more earnest now as Matt suspects he just saw his bare back and remembered the wounds he dressed last night. 

“No sir,” Matt manages to pull his shirt off and scramble back into a kneeling position, unsure of whether he should proceed to get changed, or whether Foggy has changed his mind to take him for a morning test ride. His heartbeat did pick up when he saw Matt half-naked on the floor, so…

“Foggy. Please. You had it last night,” Foggy reminds him gently, and Matt flushes, nodding. 

“Yes. Of course. Sorry.” It doesn’t happen often that he has to be reminded of an order, but it’s such an unusual one that it’s probably not that surprising that he keeps forgetting. 

“I brought you some food,” Foggy says. “It’s just a sandwich and an apple, but, uh. I read that you might have to get used to food in…small amounts at first?” he winces. “Sorry, I mean, obviously I can get you more, you’d _have_ to be hungry, I will get more, I’m an idiot, please eat this meanwhile. Oh god.” He sits down on the bed heavily. Matt, still kneeling at his side, is a bit unsure how to proceed. But still, there was an obvious order in there – eat this – and one, for once, that Matt wouldn’t mind at all complying with. He waits for one, two heart beats – Foggy is holding the food out to him, he can tell, but it would look a bit odd if just reached out to take it as if he could see it – wondering if Foggy is going to demand anything of him for it, maybe, but honestly, Matt would be fine giving a blowjob if it meant he could eat. 

“…oh! Oh, dammit. Right,” Foggy says and Matt curiously gets the impression that it’s now _him_ who’s flushing. “Here.” Matt’s fairly proud of himself that he manages not to flinch when Foggy’s free hand closes around his wrist and guides his fingers to the apple in his owner’s other hand. “Um,” Foggy starts again. “Do you want to sit on the bed? I’d take you down to the kitchen to eat, but I figured that might be a bit much, first thing in the morning?” 

This time, Matt almost can’t stop himself from giving a blatant, wry smirk. ‘Sit on the bed’. As if the guy couldn’t be more obvious. 

“Thank you,” he says demurely, raising himself and taking the apple and the bread roll to sit down on the soft bed. Any minute now, he suspects, there is going to be a hand on his thigh, maybe already fingers curling underneath the band of his pajama pants, another hand pressing his shoulder down until he is on his back, a knee nudging between his legs – 

It is a bit anticlimactic when Foggy then simply stands up and says “Right! You eat that, I’ll get you some clothes!” 

Xxx

“Um,” Foggy says, looking at him some fifteen minutes later. Matt is standing in the middle of his room, now wearing a baggy pair of Foggy’s jeans and an oversized hoodie, feeling self-conscious. “Yeah, no.” 

Matt is also getting the impression he is somehow failing to please here. 

“I can…take it off, if you want-“ he suggests, but Foggy only shakes his head. 

“Yeah, no,” he repeats. “I don’t think anything I have is going to fit you any better, sadly.” 

Matt almost regrets this. If Foggy doesn’t like how the clothes fit on his body, he likely won’t get to wear them again. They’re the softest clothes he’s been allowed to wear in years. 

“Oh well,” Foggy says, sounding as resigned as Matt feels, right before the second half of the sentence leaves Foggy’s mouth - “Guess we’ll have to go shopping.”

_Wait, what?_

Xxx

Before they apparently really go shopping, though, Foggy gives him a tour of the house. He carefully guides Matt down stairs and around chairs, warning him of low telephone tables standing in hallways and tells him where each door leads to. 

“And these are my mom and dad,” he also introduces Matt to the two adults he can sense sitting on the couch in the living room. They have their heads turned toward him, and Matt feels awkward under their gaze – this isn’t how he usually meets people, if he does at all, he would be kneeling at his owner’s feet – “Mom, dad, please call him Matt. I’m going to take him shopping to the mall later. He can’t keep wearing my clothes, he looks ridiculous. And, um-“ he swallows, “I’ve read up on it and I know Matt has to obey every order any free person gives him, so, well. I don’t want you to give him any.” 

Matt could hear one of the parents – the mother – sighing. “Franklin…” 

“Also, we’re going to the mall right now, actually. Bye!” Foggy’s hand closes around his arm and it’s one of the few times Matt is actually grateful to be dragged away from somewhere. 

Xxx

“Um,” Matt starts, when they’re waiting at the bus stop to go the mall, feeling uncertain because it’s been a while since he’s spoken when not being spoken to. 

“Yeah? What’s up?” 

“You know…I am your slave. Your family and you can order me about, I can – I _can_ follow orders. Even if I’m,” Matt swallows, “defective.” 

“Defect - holy shit, they _said_ that to you?!” Foggy gasps, voice somewhere between disbelief and anger. 

“It’s the truth,” Matt lies. Foggy shakes his head emphatically. 

“Like hell it is. Assholes. If anything, their _worldview_ is defective. No, no way am I gonna order you about, buddy. I just…well, I mean, I didn’t ever want a slave, I’m completely against that system, and I can care for myself, thank you, but mom insisted, so I had hoped I could just get… just like…somebody I could hang out with? Uh.” 

The heat radiating from Foggy’s face abruptly spikes so that Matt thinks he must be flushing bright red now, but at that point the bus thankfully arrives and they both board, Foggy’s words still echoing in his head.

xxx

To be continued..

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments, fav bits, speculation always appreciated! :D


	4. Let's Go to the Mall, Today!

The shopping goes…not great. 

Employees either coo over Matt or disdainfully inform Foggy that pets in a store need to be kept on a leash or else they will be denied entry. (“He is not a _pet_ ,” Foggy scathes, “He is a fully functional _human adult_ , and he sure as hell would behave better than those teenagers running amok in your store back there!” The shopping assistant’s eyes boggle at Foggy’s outburst, but before the guy can turn around and see the kids goofing around that Foggy had indicated, Foggy has already nudged Matt, gently pressing his elbow to his side. “C’mon, Matt. We’ll take our business somewhere else.”) 

In the end, they manage to get a collection of halfway decent shirts and jeans, and two pairs of shoes from the sale rack for the rest of the money Foggy had in his bank account for the holidays. It’s late in the day, and the shopping assistants are too tired to bother them for the most part - although if they do, they keep talking to Foggy the entire time, and one of them even almost yanks the curtain of the dressing room open, telling Foggy “I’m sorry sir, the changing rooms are for clients, not their pets.” (“What the – hey! Stop it!” Foggy interrupts them just in time, moving to block the woman from opening the curtain. “That’s my friend changing in there, what do you think you’re doing?!”

“Sir, we have a strict policy that the dressing rooms may only be used by _people_ -“ 

“Matt _is_ people!” Foggy snaps. “Matt is probably more people than you are!” he adds, somewhat nonsensically, but he is angry now. 

“Um, Foggy? It’s okay, I’m done,” Matt’s voice says, quietly, as he draws the curtain aside himself, stepping out. “We can leave, if you want.” 

“Yeah. We will,” Foggy says, still glaring daggers at the sales assistant, who has started to look uncomfortable with the situation. “Did you like the shirt you just tried on, Matt?” 

“I…yeah. It was soft. Nice,” Matt clarifies. “It felt like it fit well, too.” 

“Great,” Foggy says. “I’ll have a look at the brand and the size, and then, we will _buy it off the internet_ ,” Foggy grates at the assistant’s face, and they make another accelerated store exit.)

xxx

“I…Foggy, thank you,” Matt says, later, when they’re sitting on a bench in front of the mall, bags by their feet, and both working on a sort of wrap from a fast food place. “I realize you didn’t have to do any of those things.” 

Foggy snorts. “What, feed you and clothe you? Those are some pretty basic things that everybody has the right to, I think.” 

“Slaves don’t. At least, not like this,” Matt says quietly. “My last owner…” he starts, then makes a grimace, when everything inside him screams at him not to say anything, not to open up, not to _trust_ , but in the end goes ahead with it anyway. “My last owner wouldn’t have let me sit on the bench like this with him. I’d have been kneeling at his feet. Being hand-fed.”

Matt has turned his head slightly away from him, so Foggy can’t see his face, but he can see Matt’s hands. They’re clutching the wrap hard enough to almost smush it. 

“Well, he shouldn’t have,” is all Foggy can offer in return. Even he feels it’s a weak answer. But Matt is sharing something with him, starting to offer something of himself, and Foggy can’t help but hope that this is a kind of step forward. Next to him, Matt takes a breath. 

“At the last shop, you…said I was your friend.” 

“Oh. Yeah. I’d like to be yours,” Foggy says. “If you want me to.” 

At this, Matt honestly seems to be surprised. “Really? Why?” 

Foggy shakes his head. “Why wouldn’t I? I like having friends. And you, I mean, you’re smart – your grades are better than mine, honestly - you’re funny, you’re easy to talk to and…you even laugh at my dumb jokes, and I at least _think_ you’re being honest when you do.” Foggy rubs the back of his neck, suddenly sounding a bit self-conscious. “Um. Are you?” 

Matt stares in his direction for a moment, seeming slightly floored by the compliments. “I…yes. I like them,” he admits, and fidgets with the fabric of his pants. “But you can get all of that just by being my owner. You don’t have to…be anything else.” 

“Really,” Foggy says dryly. “And just how often did you make that asshole who didn’t want you to sit beside him laugh? Or laugh at one of _his_ jokes?” 

At that, Matt at least gives him a hint of a wry smile. “I…didn’t, actually. I don’t think he had a very well-developed sense of humour.” 

“And there you go,” Foggy nods. “ _Friends_ laugh at other friends’ jokes,” and then adds, before he can stop himself, “And I, um. Would really like to have a friend again, actually.” 

“…oh,” Matt says, sounding slightly taken aback and Foggy already feels as awkward as possible. _Who would even say that. And say it to someone who is completely dependent on you, great going, Nelson._ Foggy groans quietly. He doesn’t know quite what it is, but there’s something about Matt that apparently makes him feel like he can just talk about anything. 

“Oh god, no, forget I said that. Please. Anyway, what I _meant_ was that it would be cool if we could be buddies. Right?” he asks desperately. “Like, buddies that can help each other come up with revenge plans for rude shopping assistants.” 

“Hm.” Matt tilts his head, thankfully looking like he’s taking the cue of a topic change. But it doesn’t seem entirely like an act to please his owner when he asks, “We could…release live bees from the pet store in the shop?”

“Ooh, yes. And then yell ‘how many pets are now in your friggin dressing rooms? Huh? Huh?!’ That’ll teach her,” Foggy says vindictively, and he thinks he actually managed a genuine, almost startled _giggle_ out of Matt this time, like he’s surprised his owner is trying to make him laugh. _Wants_ him to laugh. Foggy can’t help but grin back. 

“Alright. Let’s get home and see how we can ruin the local retail trade via amazon.” 

xxx

“The shopping trip upset you,” Matt remarks, much later at night when they’ve quieted down for a while, and Foggy doesn’t bother denying it. Matt was good at reading people, Foggy had understood _that_ quite quickly, and only sometimes wondered whether that was a Matt thing, or simply a skill most slaves had to learn to survive. 

“Well…yeah.” Foggy sighs. “I already knew I didn’t like the slavery system, but I don’t think I realized until now how incredibly _dickish_ people can be about it. There’s a bit of metal around your neck, and suddenly they don’t view you as human any more, what the hell.” 

“…tell me about it,” comes Matt’s flat voice from the futon in the darkness, and Foggy once again wants to reach out and squeeze Matt’s hand, but he doesn’t want to intrude upon his space when he’s on his bed. The slave owner’s manual says that it’s psychologically useful if a slave has a ‘safe space’ that they can think of as a sanctuary, like a cage, or a kennel or, if nothing else is there, a mattress. The slave owner’s manual then _also_ went on how deprivation of that space can be a valuable discipline measure, but what Foggy has taken away from that passage is that a) he isn’t gonna be touching Matt or make demands of him while the guy is lying on his bed, and b) the author of that goddamn book really needs to be lined up against a wall and shot. 

(Later on, that rule was probably the first that went out the window. Foggy has probably lost count of the number of times he was prodded with a cane for snoring during their college days - and then threw a cushion at Matt in retaliation – and the number of times they’ve stumbled back into their dorm, completely shit-faced, and just fell into the first of their beds they happened to bump into, neither of them willing to get up after that.) 

“Can you even sleep comfortably in that thing?” Foggy wonders, aloud. On his futon, Matt huffs. Foggy wonders whether it’s the darkness in the room that makes Matt slightly more…open again, like he had been at the end of their shopping trip. When they had gotten back, Matt had mostly retreated to his former, outwardly servile and submissive self while in the company of Foggy’s parents, even trying to kneel first at Foggy’s side when it was time to sit down to dinner. It had taken a firm command from Foggy _and_ a warning glance at his parents not to say anything to get Matt to sit down at the table properly and eat the share of food Foggy put on his plate (which, thankfully, was pizza. Foggy only realized afterwards that he had no idea what he would have done if it had been something that wasn’t finger food – what kind of instructions did someone who was blind and had maybe never eaten with cutlery even need? He’d have to ask Matt when his parents weren’t there) Afterwards, Matt had looked almost pathetically grateful when Foggy had asked him to help him clean the table and showed him how to work the dishwasher. (Foggy tried not to think too hard about what it might have meant for a slave to not be able to be useful.) Now, after Foggy has changed his bandages and gotten them ready for the night, though, Matt seems to be a bit more talkative again. 

“Not really. But you get used to it,” he says, and Foggy swallows as he hears the low clink of the metal collar against one of the buttons on the pillow case. 

“I’m sorry,” he winces. “I’ll try to think of something, I promise.” 

“I’m fine. But…thank you,” Matt says, and even though it doesn’t seem like he believes what Foggy said, Foggy thinks it did not sound entirely like a lie. 

Xxx

To be continued...


	5. Who We Are in the Dark

The collar, it turns out, also brings with it some more problems than just making other people behave like dicks. 

“Okay. So these are my underpants, and these are your underpants…” a week has passed and Foggy is trying to sort both of their (meagre) belongings as he’s packing them for college, and Matt is in his room (as always) and not able to be much help. 

“Can you get me the shampoo sitting on the table?” Foggy asks, more because he wants Matt to feel useful than because he is too lazy to do it himself. “It’s sitting at the front, in the middle.” 

“On it,” Matt says, raising himself from where he has been sitting on the bed, and walking over to grab it from the desk. As he moves, something that Foggy has been noticing for a while catches his eye again. 

“Is something wrong with your neck?” 

“Hm? No, I’m fine,” Matt replies, because that seems to be an automatic reaction from him, and Foggy gives him an unimpressed look, that (sadly) is of course totally wasted on him. 

“Uh-huh. That’s why you’re keeping your neck straight as a board and avoid turning your head when you move your body. Let me see,” he says, already moving over. Matt has frozen, looking like a deer in the headlights as Foggy nears him, but he doesn’t resist when Foggy puts a hand on his shoulder, leaning in to have a closer look at Matt’s bare throat and neck. 

And then almost rears backwards. 

“…Matt! You’re _bleeding_.” 

“Yes.” 

“’Yes’? ‘Yes’?! ‘Yes’ _isn’t the answer to that question, Matt_ ,” Foggy wants to wail, because why is any of this happening to him, and Matt is just looking into his general direction, his expression a slight frown. 

“What you said…wasn’t a question,” he points out, a bit consternated, and Foggy only groans, because of course he would say that. 

“Matt. Take that collar off, now.” 

“I can’t,” Matt replies, and Foggy thinks there is a hint of anger in the words, no matter how well Matt tries to hide it. “It’s locked. The key is with my ownership papers.” 

Which prompts a wild hunt through all of the documents Foggy had painstakingly assembled for transport to college, until he has found the damn contract his mother had given him last week, and which had been crumpled all the way underneath everything else. But it does have a metal key taped to it, looking just as scratched and busted as the old collar around Matt’s neck, which Foggy carefully extracts. 

“Okay,” he says, voice, for his credit, almost calm again now. “Lift your head and let me take that… _thing_ off you.” 

Again, Matt obeys, and Foggy tries to be as careful as possible as he inserts the key, twists it, and then gingerly removes the collar. Underneath Matt’s skin is angry, red and irritated, exhibiting a rash-like look and small open, oozing sores at irregular intervals. Foggy winces and hopes none of them are infected yet. 

“Fuck,” he says, quietly. 

“Not looking great?” Matt ventures (and at least _that’s_ progress, a slightly hysterical voice in Foggy’s head reminds him, that Matt doesn’t straight jump to the conclusion that he’s somehow _defective_ , when Foggy voices how badly cut-up he is). 

“No. No, Matt, it doesn’t. Why didn’t you _say_ anything?” Foggy moans. “I swear, I have aged twenty years during the last seven days,” he sighs, as he gets out – again – the first aid kit, the salves and the bandages. “Sit down, hold your head up, and hold still. What kind of sicko even made you wear that thing?” 

“It’s a standard government collar,” Matt says, once again eerily not flinching even when Foggy does his best to disinfect and clean the irritated ring of red skin around Matt’s throat. “They’re made to be durable, not comfortable.” 

“Yeah, well, I’m now drawing on three months experience from when I was trying to flirt with this girl into anarchist bands back in tenth grade, and I’m saying ‘Fuck the government’,” Foggy says with conviction. “You’re not wearing that thing again.” 

Matt huffs out a small laugh of amusement. “I’m legally required to, Foggy. You can’t take me out of the house without a collar.” 

“Says who,” Foggy argues back. “I mean, what if you simply went out without one, who would even _know_ you’re a slave?” 

Matt begins to shrug, but Foggy slaps his shoulders back down. “Uh-uh. Hold still.” 

Matt freezes for a moment, and Foggy realizes with a slight jolt that this is technically the first time he’s ‘hit’ Matt because he’s done something wrong. Fortunately, Matt seems to realize that Foggy meant it as a friendly reminder, not as a punishment, and he relaxes again. “Sorry,” he says, clearing his throat, sounding slightly awkward.

“It’s fine,” Foggy replies, trying to let his voice sound calm and non-chalant. “So you were saying, about going out without a collar…?” 

“Ah. Yeah, no, people wouldn’t be able to see right away, that’s true. But the moment anyone asked to see my ID for something, and I wouldn’t have either a citizen ID card, _or_ a collar with an ID chip, I’d be taken in by the police. And uncollared pets are pretty much taken in and…auctioned off.”

“Oh. Right,” Foggy says, lips thinning as he works. He is now wrapping the bandage around Matt’s throat, giving him a soft, white collar instead of the grey, cruel metal one. The metal one still holds the ID chip Matt has spoken of, a small thumbnail thing that would display his registration number, name of his owner, and county of holding if held in front of a police chip reader. “Can we get you a different collar? One that doesn’t hurt?” 

“Sure. I think pretty much anything that isn’t metal or too tight will be fine,” Matt says. “Most of them will have a holding space for the chip, too. That’s the one thing that separates them from dog collars,” he adds wryly, and Foggy nods. 

“Do you have a preference for anything? Favourite colour or something?” 

Matt, however, doesn’t actually smile or snort at that like Foggy had hoped. Instead, he only replies quietly “It’s a collar, Foggy. I’m pretty much bound to hate it whatever it looks or feels like,” and Foggy, uncomfortable, drops the topic in favour of returning to packing for college. 

Xxx

It was probably somewhere around the third or fourth night in the house that Matt has started slipping out of bed when Foggy’s asleep. 

It’s not that he’s trying to escape – he’s not, he’s tried in the past, and he’s been recaptured each time, because escaping without a valid citizen ID is near impossible – but rather that he feels like he needs time to…think. Thinking around Foggy during the day is kind of hard, he’s found, since the man not only won’t shut up, but also expects Matt to contribute, earnestly asking for his opinion on half a dozen topics before breakfast, and still cracking the awful jokes that still make Matt laugh each time. 

(The first time he made one back, Foggy was so pleased he smacked Matt on his back, which immediately of course resulted in a wince and a horrified avalanche of apologies from Foggy - which, to be honest, kind of made Matt laugh harder.) 

It’s not that Matt minds – no amount of being called ‘stupid’ by his owners had ever managed to convince him that he was, he knows he isn’t, and his fists ball in anger at the memories, but Foggy doesn’t seem to think so and the amount of intellectual stimulation he’s exposed to now is staggering and like an oasis after a march through a desert. But, concentrating around Foggy is hard. Especially since everything about his stay here is still so _puzzling_ – Matt is kind of suspecting now that Foggy probably won’t start making use of him as a bed warmer until they’re at Columbia, which is either due to the fact that he wants to wait until Matt is fully healed, or that he’d feel weird having sex with his parents next door, or likely some combination of both. But while he isn’t looking forward to being fucked again, it’s become at least a less terrifying scenario in his head for the past few days – Foggy handles him gently, and Foggy likes hearing him _laugh_ of all things; in bed, Matt thinks, Foggy might actually also take care that it wouldn’t be too painful, maybe even go slow and careful enough that Matt could still pretend to like it, if Foggy liked seeing him smile. 

Now, during the second week he sneaks down the stairway soundlessly, less because he’s genuinely afraid to wake anyone up and more because he wants to see if he still can – and yup, seems like his muscles remember Stick’s training just fine – and relaxes when he’s in the familiar territory of the kitchen, the noise of the refrigerator and dishwasher, as well as the smells of three dozen foodstuffs painting a brightly burning picture of his surroundings for him. This is another weird feeling, too – the fact that he is close to food, real food, but has little to zero desire to eat anything, simply because he’s still feeling far too full from dinner. He can’t recall ever having met a slave who _wouldn’t_ jump at the chance to stuff themselves if they were able to roam the house at night freely like he is. 

It’s his advantage that he doesn’t need light to move about and he makes his way into the living room still as silent as a shadow. It’s a relief to finally be able to move without having to pretend he doesn’t know where things are – it’ll likely take at least another week until he could believably claim he had memorized the entire layout of the house – and, even though his freedom still ends at the front door of the house, it feels too much like taking another piece of himself back when at least he can move his body the way he wants to. Matt takes a breath and positions himself at the center of the living room. His senses tell him everyone else in the house is still fast asleep, heart beats and breaths slow and even. The only sound he himself makes is the quiet rustling of the loose and soft pyjama pants and T-shirt Foggy has given him to wear for sleeping. 

Clothes for sleeping. That was also a novelty. 

As it is, they’re also the perfect attire for his _other_ nightly activities and Matt breathes out, closes his eyes, drops into the stance his muscles haven’t forgotten, and then starts running through the first _kata_ Stick had ever taught him. When he manages it flawlessly at the last attempt, he can’t help but feel like a small surge of triumph. 

His name, his memories and his skills. Things they haven’t been able to take yet, no matter how deep their metal might have cut into his skin. 

xxx

Still, during the day Matt’s confusion only starts to mount, because staying at the Nelsons still hardly feels like being a slave at all. Oh, the collar around his neck (even if temporarily replaced by a bandage for now) won’t let him forget it, to be sure, but – no one in this place beats him, or even works him very hard; Mrs Nelson has him carry things occasionally, or makes him help her in the kitchen, or puts him to work folding clothes, but even that only when Foggy isn’t around. Matt hasn’t told Foggy about it, mostly because he knows that it hardly ever pays for a slave to go behind the back of one family member who owns you to go crying to another, but also because he honestly doesn’t mind – he likes being useful, it gives him something to do other than to feel completely at sea, and it’s not like the work is hard or uncomfortable. It’s usually when Foggy has gone to work himself, putting in the last few hours at the butchery he helps out in, before they’ll be heading to Columbia. Matt thinks he’s probably barely earning his keep here, especially because they feed him actual food instead of slave kibble. But despite that, neither of Foggy’s parents seem to treat him with hostility, like some working free people do when they come face to face with slaves who are basically pets, kept around without actually being very productive yet.

Matt had never wanted to be a pet, but somehow, being Foggy’s is so far less bad than expected. He thinks he could get used to living as Foggy's slave like this, even already envisions how their stay at law school might look like. It's not something he particularly looks forward to - the students at college always have some very choice ideas when it comes to having 'fun' with any house slave or study aid one of their friends might have brought along - but, Foggy seems like a decent owner, all in all. Even when the honeymoon period is over, it likely won't be that bad to belong to him.

These expectations hold absolutely true until the next day, when Foggy brings home Matt's new collar.

xxx

TBC...


	6. A Thing For Red Leather

“Matt? Buddy?” Matt’s head goes up as Foggy enters the room, back from a trip to the mall he took on his own this time, and there’s still remnants of that familiar snap-to-attention reflex whenever Foggy says his name, as if he was always bracing himself for an order or a blow.

Matt has been mostly staying in Foggy’s room, despite Foggy telling him he was free to go wherever he wanted, only leaving when Foggy dragged him to meal times or on a walk around the neighbourhood after it was dark, the day Matt’s cane was delivered. The one walk they took during daylight the day after their trip to the mall had…only gone equally as well as their day at the mall. Matt also seems to spend a good deal of his free time when Foggy leaves him alone sleeping, which Foggy chalks up to him probably being completely exhausted from his previous owners and in need of recovery, so he takes care never to wake him during a nap unless it’s for a meal. 

“Hello, Foggy. Welcome back,” Matt says, but it’s said with a mild, hesitant smile, as if Matt actually _was_ a bit happy that Foggy’s returned, and didn’t just say it because he’s been trained to. 

_Yeah, right,_ the cynical voice in Foggy’s head says _, as if a slave would ever be happy that the person who can order them around is back._

“Haven’t gotten bored, have ya?” Foggy asks instead, carefully putting the bag he’s been carrying on the bed. Matt is sitting pretty much where Foggy left him this morning, on the floor next to the bed, leaning against the covers. Foggy had pressed the remote control for both the radio and the TV into his hands before he left, explained what the buttons did, and then excused himself to run ‘errands’. 

(“I’d ask if you wanted to come with, but…” he’d said, but Matt had given him the usual tightly-wound smile, ducking his head in the already familiar way. 

“But you can’t take me out without a collar, and you don’t want me to wear it until my neck’s healed again,” he had finished Foggy’s sentence, white bandage around his throat constricting as he swallowed. “I understand.” 

“That, and I don’t think you had much fun last time we went shopping,” Foggy admits with a grimace. “I’m sorry I didn’t realize what a-holes people could be.”

Matt shrugs. “It happens. Once you’ve been out a few times with a collar you get used to it.”) 

“No,” Matt shakes his head. “I like having a bit of downtime.” 

“Right. Well, I bought something for you.” 

“Again?” Matt tilts his head at Foggy. It’s not that easy to tell with the dark glasses but he seems a bit confused. 

“Um. Yeah,” Foggy says and now he actually feels a bit embarrassed. “It’s ah…uh, here. It’s a new collar.” 

“…ah. Of course. The skin underneath the bandage should be healed now. Thank you,” Matt replies, but it’s a stiff tone again, and he tilts his head toward the ground. For a moment he looks more like a regular slave, slumped at Foggy’s feet, and Foggy instinctively grits his teeth. 

“It’s…here. Have a feel.” He takes the item out of the bag and presses it against the back of Matt’s hand. A brief frown passes across his slave’s face, but he does take the proffered collar obediently. As his fingers wrap around it, the frown deepens. 

“It’s very thin,” Matt says. “And very long.” 

“Yup,” Foggy says. “It’s also made from genuine leather and it’s red. Uh, sorry about the garish colour. I, er, also got from the female slaves’ section, because the male models were all really sturdy, but I figured, what you really needed was a collar wide enough and thin enough that you could wear it under your shirt so no one would be able to see it. You know. So you wouldn’t _actually_ be breaking the law, but also people won’t be treating you like you’re not a person,” Foggy says, and he can hear himself babbling a little now, because Matt is staring off into space even more than usual, feeling the collar between his fingers and not showing any emotion at all on his face. “Do you, uh, like it? I mean, duh, dumb question, of _course_ you probably won’t really _like_ that stupid thing they’re making you wear, but-“ 

“You…” Matt interrupts him, then, voice hoarse and he seems a little out of it, because he doesn’t even apologize for it like he usually does. “You…got me a collar specifically so I would be able to _pretend_ …to be a free man?” 

“Well, yeah,” Foggy shrugs helplessly. “After that disaster of a shopping trip it seemed like the thing to do.” 

And then he almost flinches backwards, because all at once, Matt has pitched himself forward onto his knees and grabbed Foggy’s legs.

“ _Thank you_ ,” he says and it’s raw, and helpless, and Foggy SO doesn’t know what to do with it. 

“Woah, woah, that’s okay, dude. Here, come on up, _please_.” Foggy reaches down to grab Matt by his upper arms, pulling him to his feet because he is so uncomfortable with him clinging to his legs, pressing his face into his thigh like a damn illustration from the colonies. 

_A slave may nuzzle you in an attempt to thank you, or offer sexual favours. It is up to you to either reward or curb that behaviour as you see fit._

“You don’t…seriously, I’m glad you like it, but if you want to thank me, a hug will do just fine!” Foggy tries, carefully not adding _Just please don’t act like a dog_. “I like hugging. Big hugger here. Let’s hug it all out, okay?” 

His voice is pitched just slightly higher than usual, and he’s unsure of how to hold Matt without aggravating the injuries on his back. He settles for keeping his hands on the other man’s shoulders, holding him in a light grip that he hopes doesn’t come off either as threatening or possessive. 

“You want me to… _hug_ you? As thanks?” Matt asks, voice somewhere between thick with near-crying, and genuine, simple disbelief.

“If you want to,” Foggy says, shrugging, thinking maybe the motion will transmit through his hands on Matt’s shoulders, even if he can’t see it. “Like, seriously, you don’t _have_ to do anything. But if you want to do something…well, friends generally hug, yeah. Or bake muffins? One or the other. I don’t know whether you can bake, but-“ 

Matt hugs him, hard. 

The next morning, it turns out he also (hesitantly, nervously as she tells Foggy later) asked Foggy’s mother for permission to use the kitchen to bake muffins, and the way they taste Foggy fears if he’s going to take Matt with him to Columbia, he’s going to put on the freshman fifteen _again_ , and this time they’ll have brought friends. 

Xxx

After breakfast, Matt steps out of the shower (the _warm_ shower, that he has _all to himself_ , he still has trouble processing that) and, naked, steps over to his pile of clothes for the day. Underwear on top, crisp, new jeans from amazon and a shirt from underneath, black and light blue respectively, according to what Foggy had said. They don’t fit _exactly_ – the drawback of online shopping, which is why they’re heading to the mall today, again – but better than the clothes of Foggy did. Matt still feels almost alien to be dressed, for what seems like forever, in _new_ clothes, that had been bought for _him_. 

It feels almost like being a person again. 

Except for…

Matt exhales, deeply, and then reaches out for the last item on the tumble dryer he had stacked his clothes on before taking his morning shower. His hand closes around the new, red leather collar. 

(“Okay, let’s take the bandage off for tonight,” Foggy had said, yesterday evening after he had given Matt his new collar, “Then your neck has one night to completely heal and get some fresh air and then you should be able to start wearing this one tomorrow, and we can leave the house. Sound good?” he’d asked, even if amending it with what sounded like a small grimace. “I mean, not good, but…bearable?” 

“Yes, Foggy,” Matt had said, still feeling a bit dazed. He had fallen asleep that night, neck bare for the first time in years, and still run his fingers over the new collar in the darkness, the thing that would likely make him truly _Foggy’s_. 

He had almost wished Foggy would put it on him already just to get it _over_ with.)

To Matt’s surprise, Foggy _hadn’t_ put it on him. 

Instead, he’d been handed it in the morning again, together with the new clothes that had arrived in the mail. 

“Here,” Foggy had said, “Just, uh. Y’know. Try it on, see whether it fits under your shirt and is comfortable and all. Of course, you don’t have to wear it in the house if you don’t want to. Just. Whatever is easier for you, okay?” 

“Oh. Yes, Foggy,” Matt had replied, slightly dumbfounded as he took it and the clothes, before being directed to the bathroom again. 

He had never met an owner who didn’t _enjoy_ putting a collar on their pets. (And they do, often tightening them extra fast for the first few days, just to drive it home. _You are owned by me now_.)

Matt’s lips thin.

Collars are degrading. Dehumanizing. Humiliating. Matt has also never forgotten the day the first one had been locked around his neck and he can’t even remember if he ever went more than the minute it took for them to exchange one collar for another without one, except for last night. Hands, touching his throat, his neck, and twisting keys, turning them in locks, making it tight enough to choke him…Matt takes another deep breath, fist closed tightly around the new collar, crushing the leather against his skin. 

But it’s softly yielding leather, and even though it’s a collar, it’s… _different_. 

He had never been able to take a collar off by himself, for instance. Collars are locked by nature, whether they’re heavy padlocks or dainty little electronic chip-locks. This one is the latter, it thickens both at the front where he knows Foggy has put his ID chip into the holding space, the thing not much bigger than a micro SIM card, and at the back, where there’s a small metal bit that likely will only open when Foggy puts the electronic chip key he’s probably been given near the chip at the front. Matt still couldn’t open this collar if he wanted to. 

But it’s so wide that Matt doesn’t even need to. He lifts it, once again thinking that he could probably double it up into a figure eight and _still_ pull it over his head, and then takes a breath and lets it fall around his neck, touching the back over his shirt collar and coming to lay over his front, low enough to easily hang a hand’s width below his collarbones.

He’s now officially collared as Foggy’s and he doesn’t feel like he’s choking. Now there’s a first. 

On impulse, Matt grabs the leather band and proceeds to stuff it quickly inside his shirt, settling it between the fabric and his bare skin. He can’t see his image in the mirror, so he resorts to patting, and realizes that yes, Foggy’s idea _should_ work, the ridges the collar makes underneath the shirt are so fine and irregular he’s pretty sure they shouldn’t stand out. 

And it also..doesn’t even feel that bad. Collars are supposed to be humiliating, and to make you feel your place. This one…it isn’t physically uncomfortable, and while Matt still doesn’t like the fact that he _has_ to wear it, it takes a lot of the shame away if nobody can see it. He could almost live with this. 

(Though he still has no idea why, or what the motives are behind this. Yesterday, at the idea of even being able to spend a single hour outside without that visible _brand_ around his neck, had sounded so overwhelming, pitching himself onto his knees in front of Foggy had been pretty much all he could do. Now, in the light of day, he was almost a bit embarrassed to have acted like this, giving in to his conditioning so easily, but, still. The idea of going out pretending to be a free man makes his stomach churn with both exhilaration and nerves. He prays Foggy still means it.) 

When Matt steps out in his new clothes and Foggy’s heart skips a beat for a moment, before he stammers, “Uh, oh…wow. Looking good there. Are you wearing the collar right now? Because if you are, I can’t tell, so that’s good,” Matt almost can’t help but smile as he says

“Yes, Foggy, I am. I…it’s much more comfortable than my old one. Thank you,” and he knows he sounds like the most pathetic, brainwashed pet _ever_ , but he can’t help but mean it. 

(He also doesn’t take it off when they get home, still dazed by how the day had gone, how people had _talked_ to him, how Foggy had joked with him, how…he had almost felt human again, the hidden collar briefly just a thin cord of leather around his neck, as meaningless as a piece of jewellery. 

Nothing he wants to claw off his skin as soon as they’re back home and he is no longer legally required to wear it, anyway.

And he tells himself it is easier that way, that way he can’t lose or forget it, and he can almost manage to convince himself that it doesn’t mean he doesn’t particularly _mind_ wearing Foggy’s collar when it’s just the two of them.) 

xxx

Their second shopping trip goes much better. 

It turns out, as soon as Matt isn’t wearing a visible collar any more, people are basically falling over themselves to help them, going from ‘The changing rooms are over here, sir, would you like some help?’ to ‘This shirt is a very nice, light grey, which means it should go with almost anything! Do you have any preferences for fabrics?’ 

Foggy thinks he could almost feel insulted by how this time it’s _him_ being ignored in favour of his handsome, wounded-duck companion, but Matt is genuinely smiling at the end of the day, so Foggy thinks he can probably live with that. 

The last stop Foggy takes them to is not a clothing store. 

“Oh…Foggy, no, it’s fine, I don’t need a new pair – it’s not like I use them to see through, anyway,” Matt tries, as soon as he understands where they are, but Foggy has already gently ushered them into the shop.

“Hello. My friend is looking for a new pair of sunglasses,” Foggy flags an assistant down. “Also, he clearly needs them because he is so blind he won’t notice his old ones are falling apart,” he adds, and then immediately feels terrible, because what the hell, you can’t just _say_ that, Nelson, now he’s gonna think you think he is defective all over again and - ! He is about to apologize when Matt turns his head to the young sales rep heading over to them and nods. 

“Very true, sadly. On the bright side, I save on not needing prescription glasses,” which startles the young woman into a laugh, and the conversation turns to the various available models. 

“How do you like these?” The assistant asks Matt after handing him another pair. “The lenses are very dark, but they also have a reddish tinge to them. I think they’d go great with your hair.” 

“Hmm. Yes, I like them. They feel nice,” Matt says after running his fingers along the round frames and then putting them on. “What do you think?” he asks, turning to Foggy with a shy smile. 

“Yes. Very. Very nice,” Foggy says, sounding slightly strangled, because for some reason his vocabulary seems to have abruptly fled to Canada at the sight of happy!Matt with shiny new glasses. “We’ll uh, we’ll take them.” 

“They’ll go great with my other red accessories, too,” Matt adds glibly, and Foggy is so surprised at the inside joke that he actually has to suppress a very unattractive chortle. 

“I’m, er, sorry about the blind quip, by the way. That was probably out of line,” he says when they leave the store, on their way home with bags dangling from their arms. Next to him, Matt shakes his head. 

“No, I thought it was funny. Back when I was…” he abruptly stops himself, then clears his throat and starts the sentence again. “When I was younger, people used to dance around me like I was made of glass. I hated that.” 

_Huh. Maybe not always a slave, then_. Foggy wonders whether he should dig a little deeper here, but ultimately refrains. If Matt wants to, he’ll tell him. 

“Well, good to hear you developing a sense of humour over the atrocious collar I bought you, at least.” He replies instead, trying to go for a wry tone. “Contrary to that thing, the glasses actually _do_ suit you, though.” 

“What? I wasn’t joking,” Matt defends himself, “I actually have a serious thing for red leather, I swear.” 

“Great. My mom bought me a kinkster, _that_ will be something to thank her for on mother’s day,” Foggy mutters, and then it takes them all of five seconds to helplessly burst out laughing.

Afterwards, when they sit outside the mall, on the same bench they sat on as they left the last time, Foggy describes the people passing by as they wait for the bus back, describes the sunset and what he has read about Columbia, and Matt smiles at him as he does. 

And maybe, just maybe, Foggy starts hoping that he may have gotten a roommate to be friends with after all. 

xxx

TBC....


	7. What's In A Name

“What are you going to tell people about me?” 

Matt is sitting on his new bed in their new college dorm room, and listening to Foggy unpack his things. (And it is _his_ bed. For some reason Matt had looked _utterly_ perplexed when Foggy had guided him to it and said ‘Here, you can have this one. You don’t mind if I take the one closer to the window, right?’ and continued to stare into space until Foggy had said “What, you didn’t expect to continue sleeping on the _floor_ , right?” with a laugh that was quickly turned from amused to incredibly uncomfortable in two seconds flat when Matt had said that he hadn’t been allowed to sleep in a bed of his own for the last four years.) Now, desperate for _literally any other topic of conversation_ Foggy only briefly glances over his shoulder at the question. 

“I don’t think I’ll need to tell them anything, buddy. Pretty sure the co-eds’ll soon be forming a line to ask you stuff themselves.” 

“No, I mean…what I’m doing in your dorm. I know you’re trying to help me pass as a free man,” Matt says, briefly reaching into his shirt to nervously adjust his collar, Foggy guesses, “But I’m here to be your study aid and house slave. I’ll be attending lectures, but I won’t be attending seminars or taking exams, so it’ll be obvious I’m not here as a student. What are you going to tell people I’m doing in your room?” 

“Oh. Uh.” Foggy blinks at this Very Obvious Question. Then his eyes abruptly narrow.

“Wait. I think I may have a brilliant idea.” 

Xxx

“You want to enrol your slave for a… _law_ degree?” the woman behind the desk at the dean’s office gives Foggy a fairly sceptical look. 

(It’s not a surprise. Slaves are enrolled for studying in quite a few subjects, but mostly to become engineers, to work in science laboratories or to go into finance. Jobs that generate their owners money. Enrolling someone enslaved in law, or history, or philosophy or literature classes, is generally discouraged, because the _last_ thing the system wants is to give slaves the intellectual tools to work against their bondage.)

“Yes.” Foggy nods determinedly. “He is my study aid, and I want him to take the same classes I do. He also has a Bachelor’s degree and everything. Please?”

(It’s not a completely wild shot. The system should actually work in their favour, here – slave holder lobby work has guaranteed that universities are legally required to always offer a number of spots for slaves for any given degree, and the fact that no one would be crazy enough to enrol his pet in _law_ of all things should mean Matt can still get in, even this late.) 

The woman’s eyes draw together as she looks at Matt’s documents, obviously trying to find a flaw in them. Matt is standing next to Foggy at the desk, outwardly calm and exceptionally well-behaved, even if ten minutes ago Foggy could still see him nervously fidgeting with his cane. He’s also wearing his old collar again, a last-minute adjustment after Matt pointed out that if Foggy wants to apply for anything official regarding Matt as his slave, it would be strange if he didn’t look the part. 

“He’s blind.” 

“Yes. And I still want a study aid, and you’re legally required not to discriminate against students with disabilities,” Foggy replies cheerfully. The woman gives him a look that indicates what exactly she seems to think of first year law students that want to go legal with her, but then only pushes a clipboard of papers toward them with a scowl. 

“Fine. But I seriously question why you would bring a blind slave as a _study aid_ with you. Though looking at him I can guess.” The worker presses her lips together, and gives both of them a wry glance. Next to him, Foggy can feel Matt stiffen and himself blush, but he really can’t afford to annoy the woman that could make or break Matt’s stay here. 

(“Matt,” he’d asked half an hour ago, “would you like to actually be enrolled in the classes I take and become a lawyer?” and Matt had looked at him, had really looked like he was _looking_ at him, and with a hoarse voice had replied “More than anything in the world.”) 

Foggy isn’t going to screw this up. 

“Very well. Pro forma, I’ll need a last name to enter on his application documents. There aren’t many slaves enrolled in this department, so we don’t have a separate form. Shall I enter yours? The first name you’ve given him is Matt, is it?” 

“Matthew,” Matt says, quietly. Foggy takes a little breath – if Matt’s actual name _is_ Matthew, that means he has been trusting Foggy with that part of his identity from the very beginning. 

Trusted him not to take it away from him after he offered it. 

“Matt…” he begins, and Matt flinches a little, bending his head. It seems to Foggy as if the metal collar around his neck also made him go right back to the behaviour he’d exhibited in the very beginning, tense and submissive. 

“I’m sorry,” Matt mutters. “I just thought…for official documents, maybe the full version would be better?” 

“You’re right. It is. His first name’s Matthew,” Foggy says, demonstratively confident and cheerful, and next to him, Matt lifts his head a little and seems to study him, somewhat surprised. 

“Great. And the last name…?” the woman types on her keyboard, seemingly not impressed. 

“Uh,” Foggy pauses, turning to Matt. “The last name…would you mind going by Nelson? Or maybe something really common, like Smith?” 

Matt cocks his head, seeming to think. “I…wouldn’t mind going by Nelson, no,” he says, slowly, with a mild smile. “But if you don’t want people to wonder whether we’re brothers the entire time…” He swallows. 

“Would you mind giving me the name Murdock?” 

“Murdock?” Foggy repeats. “Matt Murdock?” he takes in a sharp breath. “Wait, are you actually _from_ Hell’s Kitchen?” 

The woman at the front desk clears her throat audibly. “The full name, please? There are other students waiting outside.” 

“Oh. Right.” Foggy flounders for a moment. “Er, yeah. I’d like him to be registered under Matthew Murdock. Any middle names you want to have while we’re at it, Matt?” 

“Michael,” Matt almost whispers, and Foggy tells her to write that down, too. 

Xxx

“What the _hell_ , Matt?!” 

Matt flinches at the outburst, and Foggy quickly forces himself to lower his voice. “You’re Matt Murdock? The kid who got his peepers knocked out saving that old dude?” 

“Well, they didn’t get _knocked out_ ,” Matt defends himself with a pitiful attempt at a jocular tone. He seems slightly more relaxed now that they’re out of the Dean’s office and he has exchanged the metal collar for his hidden one once again. “Don’t think your mother would’ve bought me if I had been _that_ badly damaged.” 

“Well, yeah, that would’ve been kind of freaky,” Foggy says before he can stop himself. “Wait no! I didn’t mean that. Sorry. No offence meant.” 

“None taken,” Matt replies, with a poor attempt at a smile.

“Yeah, that isn’t…I mean I can’t _believe_ this,” Foggy says again when they get back to their dorm room. “You are basically a hero and they let you end up as a _slave_?”

“I’m not a hero,” Matt says and there’s only the slightest hint of wryness to his tone. “I just did what anyone would have done.” 

“ _Bullshit_ ,” Foggy shoots back immediately. “You totally are. And, I mean, I’m still thinking that actually no-one deserves to be sold into slavery, but of all those who don’t, you shouldn’t be the most. Er. Does that make sense?” 

“I think I get it,” Matt says, and there’s a small smile back on his face again, before he continues, more quietly, “Thank you for letting me keep my name, Foggy” 

“Yeah, that…Matt, that was the least I could do,” Foggy replies, swallowing, before he can’t resist adding, “ Also, ’Matthew Nelson’ would have sounded terrible.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Matt gives a little laugh, the first genuine one Foggy can remember hearing from him since they arrived here. He takes it as a personal victory. 

“Trust me on it. I hear blind people have spectacular hearing, so you should probably be able to tell that yourself. And yeah, starting from today on, you’ve got a last name to introduce yourself with, so you can just be a regular guy!” He grins, then adds, “A really, really good-looking guy,” because his foot is living in his mouth and has probably bought a condo there. 

Matt’s tentative smile doesn’t freeze. It doesn’t even vanish, it just turns from…genuine, to something else. Something he thinks he never wants to see on Matt’s face again. 

And Foggy backpedals frantically. 

“Oh, um, I mean, girls will love that! The whole, handsome, wounded-duck thing. Right?” 

Matt gives him another one of those stares that Foggy is pretty sure other owners don’t have to put up with. 

“You…want me to attract girls?” 

_Great, now he isn’t thinking you want to jump his bones, now he’s thinking he’s supposed to act as some sort of weird, creepy bait to capture college girls for you._

“No! I mean, if you want to. I _mean_ , we can be each other’s wingmen and it’ll be great! Let’s get coffee!” Foggy suggests frantically and then is already leading Matt out the door, because their college dorm is small, and Foggy is kind of hoping that awkwardness works like a gas, and space will let it dissipate. 

xxx

The first day of classes, wearing his invisible collar and walking around campus now that all the other students have arrived, is an almost surreal experience for Matt. He is walking next to Foggy, being led by him like a friend, not like a pet, and when they stop to ask people for directions on the campus, they’re friendly to both of them, engage them in conversation and introduce themselves to him like it’s the most normal thing in the world. 

“She’s holding out her hand, Matt,” Foggy nudges him in a stage whisper and he startles, realizing that he hasn’t even noticed it because he was so busy marvelling. 

“Oh, I’m sorry! I should have said something!” He can feel the temperature of the girl’s skin rising, she is obviously blushing, and he hurries to give her a smile. 

“No, it’s fine. I’m Matt Murdock, nice to meet you,” he says, holding out his own hand for her to grasp and can’t help but feel a wide grin stretch across his face. For the first time in a while, he feels _alive_. 

xxx

In the beginning, Foggy is actually worried Matt will become dependent on him in the long run. Psychologically, if not physically. 

_Use kindness as a tool_ , the Slave Owner’s Manual had said _. Any slave or pet will come to appreciate and depend on your kindness, going so far as to perceive it as necessary for its existence. Sometimes withholding kindness can be a far more effective measure of punishment than most anything else._

This had been followed by a lot of cherry-picked-sounding psycho babble about a guy named Harlow and the things he did to rhesus monkeys, and how starving your ‘pets’ of affection therefore was a brilliant move. Foggy bristled at everything of it and nearly tossed the book across the room. Matt wasn’t a rhesus monkey, for heaven’s sake. 

Still the niggling worry is there, for the first two weeks – Matt mostly stays close when they go out, is quiet in class, hardly speaks to anyone when not spoken to, and doesn’t seem to do anything Foggy doesn’t drag him to. Foggy has actually started looking into legal possibilities to free slaves, though he hasn’t told Matt any of that yet - isn’t going to tell him anything and get his hopes up before he knows for sure what he is talking about - (while he hopes that, in case it works, by making Matt get a law degree, his slave will also be able to stand on his own two feet economically) but after these first two weeks he is worried that Matt may not acclimatize to being free that well, after all. 

The turnabout comes during their third week at Columbia. 

“Foggy?” Matt asks, and his voice is hesitant, uncertain. Foggy makes sure to reply with a broad, audible smile in his voice, because he’s come to connect that tone with Matt testing his new boundaries, and he wants to show him how wide they are. 

“Yeah?” 

Matt frowns. “Is something wrong with your voice? You sound odd.” 

“Just _smiling_ , buddy,” Foggy replies, though this time it sounds a bit more flat. He feels like he’s just been told his face looks weird. “Rude.” 

“Sorry,” Matt says, but this time it’s less the cringing, rigid apology and more a relaxed, slightly teasing one. Foggy huffs back. 

“What’s up?”

“I…” Matt fiddles a bit with the hem of his sleeve. “Our dorm is quite close to an old boxing gym I used to know. I think if I asked, the owner there might let me train after hours, maybe for free. If you’d be fine with that.” 

“What? Yeah, sure!” Foggy says, delighted at this turn of events. “By all means! Go for it. I didn’t know you liked to box.” 

“It’s been a while,” Matt says, but doesn’t elaborate. “If you could get me the permit to go out by myself and the one to leave the house after dark…” 

“Permit?” Foggy frowns. 

(It turns out, there is a lot Foggy still has to learn about slave holding. Slaves legally have no rights, Matt explains, but there are privileges which their owner can bestow upon them. The right to leave the house by yourself, for example. The right to carry cash. The right to use telecommunication, the right to speak to other free people when not spoken to, the right to be out at night, to drink alcohol, to buy things, and so many more Foggy’s head is buzzing by the time Matt is done listing them.) 

“So…the entire time, when you stuck around in here, being a homebody, that was…?” 

At this, Matt actually gives a quiet little laugh. “I think I’m probably a natural homebody. But yeah. I’m not actually allowed to leave the dorm unless there’s a…handler with me.” The edges of his mouth turn down at the corners at the last words. 

“Uh-huh,” Foggy repeats hollowly. “And how do you get these permits?” 

(The permits, apparently, are available at the municipal bureau. Matt and Foggy show up there the very next Saturday morning, and Foggy pointedly ignores the other people there with theirslaves, men and women, some barely clothed, all visibly collared, who kneel next to their owners on the floor, or who look scared and spooked, fidgeting next to either apathetic masters or masters who pet them in an attempt at settling them. Both Foggy and Matt - who is sitting next to Foggy on the uncomfortable plastic chairs and wearing his old, metal collar for this venture, (“It’ll be fine, Foggy,” Matt had said wearily. “They’ll expect me to be collared at the bureau, the skin abrasions have completely healed by now, and I’ll survive having to wear it for an afternoon. I know you’ll take it off after.” And he’d given him a smile, once again looking grateful enough that Foggy started to blush) - feel more than awkward when questioning stares land on them the entire time. 

Foggy knows more questioning stares would land on them if they knew he’d given Matt the key to his own collar before they got here. 

When finally, _finally_ Foggy’s number is called, and they are able to head to the next overworked civil servant, both of them are glad to get out of the waiting room. Matt clings a bit more tightly to Foggy’s arm than usual, and Foggy doesn’t know how much of that is an act for their audience, playing up the part of dependent pet, and how much of that is Matt being seriously uncomfortable and overwhelmed by all the new sounds and smells of their unfamiliar surroundings, so he simply puts a soothing hand on Matt’s clinging fingers, rubbing them a bit in an attempt at comfort. Matt relaxes. Foggy’s gesture falls in the blurry overlap between the treatment of a scared slave and that of an anxious friend, but it’s that overlap they’ve been using ever since their arrangement started, so by now, it’s almost a comfort on its own. 

“Hello. So, you’re here for…” 

“Permits. For slaves. I want _all_ of them,” Foggy says, firmly, and he can feel Matt next to him suppressing a startled snort, just as the woman at the counter gives him a seriously doubtful stare over the rim of her glasses. 

“You want to apply for a permit for your slave?” she asks, chancing a glance over at Matt. 

“Close. I want to apply for all the permits there are. I think there are a lot, right?” Foggy asks. “No worries, we’ve got time!” 

The woman gives him a dry look. “So you also want the permit for him to be able to fly a plane?” 

“Uh…maybe not that one,” Foggy stumbles. “But the rest, yeah. Bring them on.” 

Matt makes a noise that he thinks might’ve been a verbal protest if they were alone, so he adds, “and put the one for him being allowed to talk to people on top!” 

“Right above the ones for him to be allowed to handle farm equipment and perform in a theatre, then,” the woman mutters, but starts getting forms out of folders. Foggy and Matt take the stack of papers and retreat to a corner in the bureau – where Matt is thankfully talking to him again once they have a semblance of privacy – and Foggy does just what he promised to do and fills out every one. 

Well. 

The one allowing Matt to get pregnant gets rejected by the woman when they return (as does the one for Matt being allowed to handle fire arms), but other than that, Foggy considers their trip a triumphant success when they leave with an entire deck of little plastic cards, each one of them informing the reader of another ‘privilege’ granted to Matt now. 

“Thank you,” Matt says, as soon as they have left the bureau and he has exchanged the metal collar for his regular, hidden one again. Foggy notices how his entire posture even changes, becomes straighter and more confident, more like he’d been on his good days during the last two weeks. “I don’t think I’ll need to carry most of them with me, most of the time, but…thank you.” 

And he’s smiling, and _genuinely_ smiling, and Foggy thinks that this entire Saturday, filling out forms at the office until his hand cramped, was SO worth it.) 

Xxx

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are what makes every letter typed worth it:D Anything you liked in particular? :) Thanks for reading!
> 
> (also, note: I added a scene to the last chapter, in case any of you wanna check back there :p)


	8. Collecting Fragments

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay, COMMENTS! Extra fast update for you :3

“Hello? Mr. Fogwell?” 

Matt knows he’s legally allowed to do any of this. He has two wallets now, one of them that he’d dearly like to forget he has to carry, and that one holds the permit cards. (Technically, most owners just clip the permit cards they give to their pets to their collars, so people can see at a glance what that particular slave is permitted to do and isn’t. Matt hadn’t _really_ expected Foggy to do that when they came home from the bureau, but he can’t deny he was still incredibly relieved when Foggy pressed the little leather folder into his hand instead.) He’s using the privilege granted to him by three of them, currently – right to be out at night, right to use public transport, and right to talk to free people – and he is also doing his damndest to make sure no one realizes he needs these permits to do those things legally. So his collar is well hidden, and the permit cards themselves are in a separate holder that he doesn’t have to get out with his regular wallet that holds his student ID and cash (using permit number four). 

“Yeah? Someone still there?” Fogwell’s voice is old, and rougher than Matt remembers it, but it’s still unmistakeably his. Matt hopes no one else can hear his heart beat as fast as it does, because then his pretense would shatter. 

“Actually, it’s me. Matt Murdock? I don’t know if you remember me,” Matt says, stepping into (what he thinks is, judging from the warmth) the light of the old lamp above the gym door. 

“Matt…?” Fogwell croaks, and steps closer. He sounds like he has a beard now, and drinks a little bit more than he should. There is a stoop to his shoulders, and a bad knee creaking to Matt’s ears, but he still moves quickly enough for an old man, shuffling toward Matt. “Holy hell, boy, that really you?” 

“Still the same,” Matt lies, but covers it easily with a smile. He knows he technically isn’t Matt Murdock anymore, isn’t anything but what Foggy chooses to name him, but this…this is a fragment from his old life, before he was sold for the first time, and Matt treasures every single bit of it. 

“I thought…I didn’t see you since your old man won that fight,” Fogwell says. “Damn solid fighter, he was.” 

“Yeah,” Matt agrees easily, “He was.” 

“So what brings you back to this old place, boy?” Fogwell tilts his head at him. “Surprised you found it again without your peepers. But I guess you couldn’t mistake the stink, right?” 

Matt shakes his head with a snort. “Not very polite, Mr. Fogwell, making fun of the blind.” 

“Oh, spare me. You Murdock boys always could take anything the world threw at ya,” Fogwell waves him off. “So what are ya doing that brought you here?” 

“Actually, I’m going to law school at Columbia. The campus is fairly close.”

“Are ya?” Fogwell asks, moving his face closer and taking his glasses off in a way that Matt wonders whether he’s squinting at him. “Well good on ya, kid. Woulda made your old man proud.” 

“Hopefully, yeah,” Matt replies, privately trying to avoid thinking about what his father likely would have done if he’d seen Matt only four months ago, collared, caged, naked and grovelling on the floor before his last owner. (His last owner, who he had then thrashed six ways to Sunday four days later; neither of those instances would have been likely to impress his father much). 

“Anyway, I was wondering if I could maybe use the gym for some basic training after hours. I’m sorry I wouldn’t be able to pay you much on a college budget, but I also wouldn’t need to keep the lights on,” Matt tries with a joke, and is rewarded with a hacking laugh. 

“You wanna train? Yeah, sure. Guess I owe Battlin’ Jack’s kid that much,” Fogwell says and then digs around in his pocket for what sounds like keys. 

“Everything’s still where it was twenty years ago, so if ya remember the place you ain’t gonna bang yer head too much. Why change what works,” Fogwell mutters, then presses the keys into Matt’s hands, folding Matt’s fingers around the individual ones. “That’s for the showers, that’s for the back, that’s for the front. That’s for the equipment room. Throw them in the letterbox when you leave, and if you bring a tenner next time, I’ll get ya yer own. See ya, boy. If that isn’t offensive for you people.” 

“No offence taken, Mr. Fogwell. Good night,” Matt replies, suppressing a head shake, and then listens as the old man shoulders his bag again and leaves him standing in the old gym. Matt doesn’t realize how tense he’s been until he’s released the breath he’s been subconsciously holding all this time. 

He’s done it. 

He played the role of a free man, alone, without Foggy around, and was treated as one, and no one even _knew_. 

(Well, sure, Fogwell had called him ‘boy’, but that was all to do with the age gap and the memories, and nothing with his status. And Matt had managed not to flinch at the address.) 

And now…Matt drops the bag with the clothes he’s brought for changing. Drops his jacket on top of them. He can hear the faint creak from where the sand bag hangs. He can smell where the spare wraps are kept in the unlocked locker, and after warming up and stretching for a while he goes to wrap them around his hands, slowly, methodically, like he hasn’t been able to for a long time. He steps into the ring. 

For the first time in years, he is all alone, unobserved, and completely on his own territory where no _owner_ can come to disturb him. 

When Matt comes back four hours later, knuckles punched raw and barely able to hold his cane, Foggy thinks he rarely has seen him look so beat, and so _content_. 

Xxx

“Foggy?” 

“Hmmwah?” Foggy manages. ‘Why are you up this is too early’ would have been the next logical step in his line of questioning, but because it _is_ too early, all he gets out is another ‘Wha-hm?” 

“It’s Sunday,” Matt says. “Would you mind if I went to Mass?” 

“Huh?” Foggy blinks at Matt, fully dressed, blearily. “You’re religious?” 

“Catholic, actually,” Matt says with a shrug. “Turns out you gain a whole new appreciation for all the bible stories containing slaves when you are one.”

“Uh. Right.” Foggy says intelligently. “Do you, er, need a permit we don’t have yet or…?” 

“No. Attending Mass seems to be one of the few things you only need your owner’s verbal permission for, not a signed document.” Matt shakes his head. “So, if you don’t need me…” 

“What? Oh, yeah, go ahead. Matt, you know you don’t have to ask to leave the dorm any more. Have fun. Or have guilt, or whatever it is you Catholics go to Mass for.” 

Matt gives a snort and shakes his head, but then still smiles and gives a quiet ‘Thanks, Foggy’ before he turns and heads out the door. He returns later in the afternoon with a bag of muffins and a tale of an exploratory adventure with raccoons in the local park, and Foggy smiles. It seems like he wouldn’t have needed to worry about Matt becoming dependent on anything or anyone after all. 

xxx

Matt, on the other hand, is at some point is seriously wondering whether Foggy gets how slavery is supposed to _work_. 

It’s been five weeks since they started classes, almost two months since he got given to his new owner, received more freedoms than he ever dared hope for – so many, in fact, that sometimes he even manages to forget that he technically _isn’t_ supposed to walk around outside, unsupervised, in the sunshine, just because it feels nice, or talk to girls who have pretty voices, or buy himself a latte, or go running across the rooftops at night, loving the _rush_ it gives him – and Foggy still has barely given him any orders, and even those he was polite enough to outwardly phrase as requests. 

The one order Matt is waiting for still hasn’t made it out of his mouth. 

The thing is, Matt _knows_ Foggy wants him. Most owners give their slaves a test ride the very first night they have them, and, even if by now Matt has realized that Foggy _really_ for some reason doesn’t want to see him in pain and therefore likely gave him a honeymoon period while he was still healing from his last punishment, Matt knows that by now he is healed up again (being allowed to sleep in a bed of his own and being able to meditate helped there) and therefore Foggy really has no reason to hold back any more. 

Matt still wishes he _would_ \- it is so nice to pretend to be free, pretend that Foggy really wants to be his friend instead of – even unconsciously - just using him as a substitute until he can find actual, free people friends, and Matt also knows what it will probably feel like to be reduced to an object again when Foggy uses him…but he also knows that it’s pretty much inevitable. He can feel Foggy’s heartbeat spike every so often when he presumably looks at him, or brushes against him. Despite the panicked speech about being each other’s wingmen to pick up girls, Matt is fairly certain that Foggy is _not_ just interested in women. 

Of course, Matt isn’t stupid – Foggy seems like a genuinely nice person, and Matt is even fairly sure that Foggy would actually think that, since this is only what Matt is trained as, and since Matt usually is happy to perform any other task Foggy asks him to, this wouldn’t have to damage their friendship – true ‘friends with benefits’, even. 

Matt wonders what it will be like, the first time Foggy remembers what he’s here for. Will Foggy be satisfied with a simple hand- or blowjob, or is he going to bend Matt over the desk or bed straight away, riding him while asking him to muffle his cries? Is he even going to get a warning, an order to undress, or is Foggy simply going to come up behind him at some point, taking a breath and telling him ‘Hey, buddy, would you mind…bending over? I think I kind of need you for this.’ And run his fingers under the band of Matt’s jeans? 

It likely wouldn’t be that bad, Matt thinks, even while his fists clench. Foggy doesn’t feel like the type of owner who gets off on pain. He’d survive. Foggy would likely give him a pat, even, maybe a fond squeeze of his sore behind as a thank-you for a job well done - or even allow him to come as well, instead of leaving him bent double, overstimulated and trembling.

Matt might not even have to get fucked every night. 

His illusion of freedom will be over, but it won’t be that bad. 

(In fact, if Foggy just did it, maybe Matt would be able to at least stop thinking about it.)

Xxx

It’s after he first four months of their stay at Columbia are over when Matt finally thinks this is it. Foggy is currently in the shower, while Matt is already lying in bed, but he can’t sleep. 

Mostly because he can hear what Foggy is doing, and, more importantly, what he is saying. 

_Matt_. 

It’s mostly that, plus a few ‘oh, yes’ and ‘oh _god’_ s thrown in, plus whimpers that sound like they’re suppressed by a fist shoved into Foggy’s mouth. He is clearly trying to keep it down, although Matt isn’t sure why. Maybe he doesn’t want to scare Matt beforehand? 

The temperature in the shower is rising, and so is Foggy’s heart rate, desire pulsing from his skin in waves. Matt fists the sheets beneath his hands, squeezing his eyes shut and trying to steady his breathing as he waits for Foggy to come out. 

He wonders whether Foggy will feel the need to say ‘sorry’ beforehand. It would sound like such a Foggy thing to say. 

Matt exhales and attempts to consciously relax himself. He will have to, if he wants this to be as painless as possible. 

If he wants to be a good pet for Foggy. 

He is surprised himself how that thought isn’t even accompanied by as much revulsion as it usually is – he _wouldn’t_ actually mind being a good pet for Foggy. He’s given Matt so much. Offering sex voluntarily is one of the few ways slaves can thank their owners, as well as submissively nuzzling them or kissing their feet, but Matt hadn’t quite been able to do that yet - it would have been a reminder of what he is, and he hasn’t quite been able to bring himself to behave like he should, even if Foggy more than deserves it. 

Well, that’s probably going to change, starting from tonight.

Matt briefly contemplates on whether he should strip, arrange himself on the bed spread in an offering, ready position to show Foggy that yes, he knows what is asked of him, he is grateful and he _can_ be good – thank you for giving me my name, Foggy, thank you for letting me pretend, thank you for letting me _talk_ , he could whimper, if Foggy wanted to hear him, thank him with every sharp thrust inside of him. 

The door opens before Matt has decided what to do. He tenses anyway, even as a small frown of confusion drifts over his features – Foggy…isn’t hard anymore. He finished in the bathroom. 

“Night, Matt.” Matt almost flinches at his name, but still hears Foggy pad over to his bed, already wearing his softly rustling sleep clothes, and then collapses pretty much immediately onto the covers. 

He didn’t even _touch_ Matt. 

Matt lies in bed, utterly confused, for a few long minutes. By the time he remembers the reply ‘Good Night, Foggy’ is required of him, Foggy’s breathing has evened out and he’s pretty sure it doesn’t matter that the only thing he manages instead is a baffled ‘…wait, _what_?’ 

Xxx

TBC...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you liked - if you read, please review? :D


	9. Beautiful Dream

Xxx

The pattern repeats. 

In fact, Matt is pretty sure Foggy regularly has fantasies about him, mutters his name or things he’d like to do Matt, what he’d like Matt to take when he’s in the shower, or under his own covers, when Matt is pretending to be asleep. 

But they remain just that. Fantasies. 

Foggy touches him occasionally, to guide him, to get his attention, when he wants to press a drink into Matt’s hand. But it’s never the proprietary touch he is entitled to, never a touch that ventures onto a part of Matt’s body that would be too intimate, even though he owns all of Matt anyway. 

Matt gets bold. And morbidly curious. 

He remembers his training with Stick, how he would try and circle closer and closer in practice fights, knowing he needed to get in close, also knowing that whenever he tried to get _too_ close he’d be on the wrong end of a painful whack with the cane, but unable not to try anyway. 

_The trick is to goad your opponent,_ Stick had told him _. Get them to be angry, they will make a mistake._

Matt doesn’t know whether Foggy is his opponent. 

He knows, logically, that he hates being owned, hates the idea that not even his own body is supposed to belong to him. Hates that anyone in possession of his legal papers is allowed to use him as they please, which they frequently did. 

But with each day that passes, with each day Foggy fails to make him feel pain, fails to touch Matt in any way other than welcome, friendly handling, it gets more and more impossible to see him that way. 

Matt grits his teeth. He knows he can’t let himself get emotionally attached to Foggy. Because if he does, he’s pretty sure he’d actually _want_ to be fucked by Foggy, and…

Being used by someone you have feelings for would hurt too much. 

Xxx

He tries making Foggy angry. ‘Accidentally’ splashes hot coffee onto him. ‘Accidentally’ steps onto a CD and breaks it. Each time he drops to his knees, apologizes, offers to take whatever punishment Foggy wants to mete out, makes sure his lips are slightly parted to remind Foggy what he’s there for. 

Only Foggy never seems to _get_ angry. The coffee incident is treated with ‘Ow! Ah, shit, that’s hot. Guess we gotta do laundry early this week.’ The CD earns a ‘Oh no! Man, I shoulda cleaned this up, shoot,’ and the kneeling is invariably greeted with a ‘the hell? Oh good god, Matt, get _up_ , everything is _fine_!’

Moreover, it also always results in Foggy treating him extra-careful for a day or two, and then diligently tidying up their apartment and studiously avoiding giving him drinks to carry in the future, like Matt is too incompetent or fragile to handle even such a simple task. It drives Matt up the wall, and if this were anyone other than Foggy, he’d even consider this a sort of long-term mind game to break him completely. 

Since it _is_ Foggy, all he can come up with is a pathetic question of ‘Can I get you a coffee, Foggy?’ one week later, desperately wanting to prove that he _isn’t_ a completely incapable house pet, and feeling utterly humiliated at the involuntary feeling of gratitude when Foggy replies with a ‘Oh god, that would actually be awesome, thanks. I don’t think I can write another page without some caffeine.’ 

Matt gets him the coffee and wonders what is wrong with him that he can’t even decide whether he’s _disappointed_ Foggy fails to ever make use of him to punish him properly.

Xxx

What he has been expecting since his very first day seems to finally come about after their _fourth_ month at Columbia. 

“Matt?” Foggy’s chair squeaks as it swivels. Matt is sitting on his bed and turns his head into his direction to show he’s listening – owners appreciate being shown respect this way, and after four years, it’s a natural reaction.

“Hm?” 

“There’s something I wanted to do to you from the very beginning. But I was worried to ask. I think…I wanted to get to know you first? Not spring something like this on you when you were still…recuperating,” Foggy speaks slowly, delicately, like he is a veterinarian selecting tools to lay on the table, hoping that none of them will scare the animal he is about to operate on. 

And Matt can feel his stomach sink all the way to his knees, even while something else, something _hot_ inside him clenches. This is it. The honeymoon is over. 

Foggy is going to bend him over the table and fuck him, or maybe force him onto his knees on the bed and fuck him again, and he is going to feel it the next day, and the day after that, and it will be a constant reminder, again, of what he is and where he belongs. 

He just hopes Foggy might still let him go to class, or let him leave the room, when he remembers what Matt is here for. Maybe if he is especially good. 

“Yes?” Matt says and forces his voice to remain steady. Maybe he can make this easier for the both of them. “What is it?” he asks, at the same time almost casually spreading his legs where he is sitting on their couch, leaning back a little and putting his arms on the backrest so his shirt spans tightly over his chest. He has had enough free time to pick up his training during the last dozen weeks. Judging by the way Foggy’s heart rate ratchets up a notch, he thinks it may have had an effect. 

“I, uh.” Foggy manages. Matt can’t see where his eyes are currently travelling but he can guess. The idea that Foggy is watching him right now, drinking him in…it should be repulsive, but his body has been conditioned for this kind of situation. Matt can feel warmth pooling between his legs and he wonders if it would be overkill if he started unbuttoning his shirt, and then decides against it – Foggy might want to give the order himself. 

“I’m pretty sure I’m completely healed now,” Matt says, easily, encouragingly. “I’ll be fine.”

He doesn’t need to hear his own heart beat to know that’s a lie. 

“Oh. Good!” Foggy says, and it’s about two octaves higher than his usual tone, and now Matt is wondering whether he might be misreading some signals here. He crosses his legs again, suddenly self-conscious. 

“Um. Yeah. So,” Matt replies, and he desperately wants to fiddle with the hem of his shirt, to distract himself, but he knows that wouldn’t be very alluring. Instead, he slides smoothly off the couch to come to kneel at Foggy’s feet. Foggy freezes, so Matt doesn’t try to nuzzle him and initiate any sort of contact before Foggy is ready, but he does tilt his head up and tries a fake, fake-feeling smile. 

“Whatever you want to do, it’s fine.” 

“Oh god, _Matt_ ,” Foggy says, leaning back on his chair as far as he can, voice strangled and hands clenched hard into his thighs. “I want to _free_ you!”

 _This_ brings Matt up short. For the first time in his life, he thinks he’s actually glad to be kneeling at someone’s feet, because he thinks if he _wasn’t_ , this declaration might have been enough to make him stumble and grasp for a wall. 

“You want to _what_?” 

“Wow. You, er, sure don’t react with the enthusiasm I was hoping for,” Foggy manages, but he doesn’t sound miffed, rather a bit awkward. “I was hoping because you really liked pretending to be free-“ 

“No!” Matt immediately scrambles, awkwardly shuffling closer on his knees, not really knowing what to do with his hands until he uses one to grab Foggy’s trouser leg in a desperate attempt to feel more grounded. “I do, I really do,” _I love you for allowing me to pretend_ , “I am so, so grateful, Foggy. Sir,” he fumbles, because he utterly has no script to work from here, and is completely at sea. “I just…I didn’t _expect_ …this.” 

“Oh, um. Yeah, I guess it’s kind of unusual, maybe?” Foggy says, swallowing. “But I mean it, Matt. I was hoping to do that from the very first day I got you, if I could figure out how it worked and you…y’know, looked like you’d want it. You know you have to agree to be freed, right?”

Matt, still dazed, nods dumbly. The procedure for a slave to be freed takes _years_ \- even if Foggy filed an application for Matt’s emancipation now, they likely would have graduated from law school before he could be freed. It’s a safeguard in the system – for a slave to be released, they have to continue to belong to the same owner who filed the application during the years the process takes, and of course, the owner can change their mind at any time. It means abolitionists can’t just mass-buy slaves to free them, not without having to house and feed them for three to four years, although officially it’s just supposed to be enough time for an owner to ‘judge whether their slave is psychologically stable enough to be their own person’. 

And then, when the owner gives their final signature on the emancipation papers after those years, finally the slave also has to _agree_ to be freed – the only decision they’re ever allowed to make in their life, and another safeguard to prevent owners from simply abandoning pets they’ve grown weary off, leaving them to be homeless and starve. 

That said, it’s also not a decision Matt ever expected he’d have to make – usually, the prospect of freedom is only ever dangled into slaves’ faces to be yanked away at last minute, keeping them hopeful and docile and desperate to please. He can hear Foggy’s heart beat, and he sounds sincere, at least – he really _wants_ to free Matt, and believes every word he says to him. And even while Matt would dearly love to cling to that hope that this might be the actual truth, that Foggy will keep his word, file the application and in five years, sometime after they’ll have taken their bar exam, Matt will be a free man – he also knows he can’t let himself believe it. 

“Yes,” he whispers to Foggy nonetheless. “I want to.” 

He knows it won’t last. Foggy might not ever be a bad owner, but he certainly won’t release Matt, either, not when he grows into his role and finds the ways having power over Matt can be useful and pleasing – owning slaves changes people, and Matt knows that. 

He just has to keep telling himself it, because otherwise he thinks he might believe Foggy in a heartbeat.

  


xxx 


	10. When the Clock Strikes Midnight (the Ball is Over)

Only Foggy doesn’t change. He files the papers the next Saturday, Matt is there, in his collar, at the bureau, listening to him do it. And Matt listens to his heart every time he mentions freeing Matt - ‘Okay, here’s a credit card for you, it’s made out in my name, but you can use that one until you’re free and can get your own’, ‘Do you think you’ll want to work as a lawyer, then? When you’re free?’ and ‘As a free man, you think you wanna stay in Hell’s Kitchen?’ – and his heart beat is utterly steady. _Truth_. 

Matt desperately wants to ask him _why_ , _why would you free me, your family paid *money* for me, and I haven’t even done anything to earn my keep, why are you DOING this,_ but he doesn’t. He’s afraid that if he asks, Foggy might suddenly realize that he’s being insane, and all of this would pop like a soap bubble, so Matt keep his mouth shut and tries not to let himself think of the possibility of freedom too much. 

Instead, he turns to studying harder because he then doesn’t have to think about it, and also because middterms are coming up. 

This strategy works incredibly well until the next Friday night. 

Xxx

“Hm, Foggy, maybe you should stop.”

“What? No. _Another_!” 

Matt winces as Foggy smashes the glass on the floor, earning them probably an evil look from the waitress when she comes over to their table again, and Foggy orders them a sixth round of shots. 

Well. Orders _himself_ a sixth round of shots, because Matt has drunken one beer, is nursing a second while he’s barely touched his own, first shot, and, since slaves rarely are allowed to drink recreationally to build up a tolerance, this is already enough to get him quite buzzed, which is why he stops here. 

He knows that getting drunk even as a free person can be dangerous, and as a slave, it is downright suicidal. 

(No, Foggy likely wouldn’t punish him for anything Matt said or did while not quite there. But there is so much more, so many other clues from people you have to watch out for if you’re collared, or collared and trying to hide it, and Matt doesn’t want to imagine the consequences if he got drunk and maybe picked a fight, or someone they knew ran into them here and either of them let anything slip. He’s been pretending to be a free man for half a year now. He never ever ever wants to stop.) 

“T-two more,” Foggy slurs at the non-impressed waitress, not quite noticing Matt next to him lifting his (still full, first) shot-glass in the direction of the waitress and shaking his head, making a I’m-still-good-thanks hand gesture. She either doesn’t seem to notice he’s blind or is too stressed out to be surprised at his accuracy honing in on her, but he hopes she gets it like she did the last four times. 

“Foggy, it’s getting kind of late. Think we should be heading back after this?” Matt tries again, and, he thinks, for the first time since he got given to his new owner, _really_ wishes that he was able to disobey, or drag Foggy out of here against his will. In fact, this is probably the first time Matt can remember to be uncomfortable in Foggy’s care at all, after the first few days with him. 

(Luckily, Foggy hasn’t specifically ordered him to actually _drink_ , pushing most of Matt’s glasses toward him with unclear commands like ‘Nah, Matt, you gotta have fun, here’. Matt’s been a slave long enough that dodging fuzzy orders like this is almost too easy.) 

True, he doesn’t actually know what _would_ happen if he ever wilfully disobeyed Foggy – the disciplinary tools Matt was delivered with received one horrified ‘oh god, what the FUCK’-commentary from Foggy and then were never seen again – Matt isn’t actually even sure whether they came with them to Columbia; he’d naturally assumed they had, but then noticed they weren’t actually anywhere among the things Foggy had unpacked – but surely there had to be _some_ punishment, right? Since Foggy only ordered him to do something rarely, maybe once or twice a day, and his commands usually had been along the lines of ‘come on, let’s get lunch’, or ‘oh god, Matt, can you make sure I get out of bed for class tomorrow? It’s already 4 am now and I have a history of sleeping through _fire_ alarms, never mind normal ones’ or just ‘Matt, hurry UP!’ when he had been in the shower and Foggy apparently wanted to use it, too, Matt _liked_ Foggy. And he was grateful. He had never had a reason or a wish to disobey. 

“Hmnaaah,” Foggy turns toward him, and sounds like he is grinning, although by now probably a bit unfocused. “We’re selebrate – _celebrating_ , Matty,” he announces, although it sounds more like ‘celebraying’ when he says it, “Midderms are over! We _earned_ this! C’mon, drink up!” 

Matt is glad he can sense the slap on his back coming and therefore doesn’t flinch when it hits, or spills his beer. It’s also a nice feeling to register that apparently, his body is starting to trust Foggy, because there is no accompanying wave of panic at being slapped by an owner anymore. Matt is by now fairly sure that Foggy would never, ever physically hurt him for fun, and that makes him feel a little warm inside despite the situation. He obediently takes another sip of his beer – Foggy _had_ said ‘drink up’, but helpfully failed to specify a time frame – and wonders whether he might have a chance of claiming he was feeling sick and asking whether he was allowed to go back on his own. 

And then Foggy next to him slurs ‘Maaaatt, help, I can’t read the menu, they printed it upside down’, and Matt internally groans because there is no way he can leave Foggy alone in this state. True, officially he is only his house slave and study-aid, not his body guard, but he _knows_ it is his responsibility to care for his owner, and he _wants_ to care for Foggy, because Foggy cared for him when he was hurt.

 _And besides_ , a little voice adds, _what would happen if he choked, alone, on his own vomit somewhere in a toilet, you know you wouldn’t have it anywhere as good as with him, ever_. 

Matt chases that thought away. This isn’t why he is doing this. Foggy is a good person, essentially, as good as anyone in this fucked-up system can be. Foggy deserves to be kept safe. 

_Yeah, good on you,_ another, nastier, _older_ voice comments in his head. _Take care of your future abuser, like a good brainwashed pet. They could write the damn handbook about you._

Matt chases that thought away, too. 

“Foggy, the menu isn’t printed upside down. I’m extrapolating here, because I can’t actually _see_ it, but I would recommend _turning it around_ ,” Matt says, against his better judgement, but he _has_ been ordered to help.

“Uh. Huh,” Foggy says, continuing to stare at the upside-down menu as it takes him a while to process this, apparently, and Matt internally sighs _again_. 

(Going out drinking with Foggy before had been actually fun, he remembers. He had been scared to death the first time - drunk owners were trouble, they either got angry and beat you, or they got horny and fucked you, and while Matt had already figured that at least on the first front he was pretty safe, he also knows that a drunken owner, unfortunately, provides little to zero protection in case anything like a police check or something happened there. But Foggy _hadn’t_ really gotten drunk before, their budget hadn’t really allowed it, but instead, even if he had made grand speeches about picking up girls, had abruptly changed the plans for the night when he had found out Matt hadn’t ever had a proper beer – Matt already figured the one time he had been forced to drink from a beer pong until he was sick and passed out didn’t really count – and they had spent the entire night pub-crawling and buying ever weirder craft- and micro brews, Foggy growing increasingly amused at the detailed descriptions Matt could give of their tastes and aromas and the guesses he made about the production process. Due to all of the walking and talking and the sharing of the beer, neither of them had gotten actually any more than pleasantly light-headed, but still entirely coherent, and it had been like that most nights when they had gone out, after. Foggy was often _talking_ about them picking up girls, but mostly just ended up describing them to Matt, or describing other people to Matt, and they ended up laughing and giggling, and Matt had ended up thinking that yes, there was an appeal to bars and alcohol when you weren’t forced to kneel on the sticky floor and got handed around to people.) 

Today, though, Foggy has gotten well and truly _sloshed_ , and Matt already knows that because he is now a slave who actually _cares_ for his owner, he’s _fucked_. 

“Maaattt, I don’ unnerstand this menu. ‘n I don’t think the waitress likes me ‘ny more,” he says, sadly. “C’n you get us somethin’ from the bar? I wan’ another one of these,” Foggy asks, pushing the empty shot glass toward Matt. 

“Of course, Foggy,” Matt replies with gritted teeth because he has to, and rises, carefully taking both Foggy’s empty glass _and_ his full one. No need for his owner to drink this one, too. 

“Thanks, Matt. You’re the _best_. So glad I got you,” Foggy says, sounding genuinely happy and affectionate, and Matt is torn between glowing at the praise and internally wincing because ‘so glad I got you’ is innocuous enough, but the full sentence here is ‘so glad I got you _as a present’_ and he has no wish for anyone to hear that. 

Nevertheless, the reply “Thank you, Foggy” is required, and Matt gives it, softly, before he turns and tries to make sense of the noisy chaos of the bar to find his way to the counter. He much prefers Josie’s. 

xxx

“Sorry. Excuse me.” Matt is trying to push through the throng around the bar, trying to get to the counter, and, sadly, it’s far too crowded, and most people are far too buzzed, for anyone to see the cane and make this easier for him. He knows he’s still pretty lucky his collar is invisible – otherwise attempting to muscle his way through a crowd would go _so_ badly – but still. It’s also either another sign of how drunk Foggy is that he gave Matt an order that is a bit of a struggle to fulfil, would be _more_ of a struggle if he didn’t have his senses – all other orders so far had been incredibly easy – _or_ it is a sign of Foggy finally slipping a bit more into his owner role and realizing that hey, he _can_ make Matt do anything, and it’s _nice_. 

Matt firmly hopes it’s the former, but he does have a sinking feeling. 

“Hey! Hey, can I get another,” - he sighs, internally, briefly, - “Red-headed Slut?” (because _of course_ Foggy would favour the goddamn shot that just happened to coincide with one of Matt’s least favourite nicknames for himself) he calls, when he _thinks_ he has caught the attention of a bartender. He can tell the man’s face is tilted toward him, but whether he’s looking at him is anyone’s guess. 

“That’s five bucks,” the voice of the bartender says, putting a glass down in front of him that smells like a Red-head, so it’s a safe guess that yes, he has heard him. Matt fumbles into his back pocket, feeling for a note of his petty cash he has folded lengthwise. 

(Another mind-boggling development. At some point Foggy had told him he’d drawn up an expenses budget, where, after all their bills for food and rent and school materials had been deducted, they were left over with 400 dollars for any non-necessary expenses per month. And Foggy had decided the best idea for this was to not only give Matt a cash card, but also set up a second account in Foggy’s name that Matt had the PIN and the exclusive use of, and that Foggy deposited 200 dollars a month into regularly. Matt had then also been ordered to carry cash on his person at all times ‘For emergencies, trust me, my mom knew what she was talking about’ and entrusted him with buying his own clothes, toiletries and ‘anything else you like, seriously, this is your money. Uh, most of it is left over from the money mom got from my bio-mom to buy you for, anyway’, he’d said, awkwardly. That had felt like a punch to the gut, Matt _knew_ he was basically worthless, but he hated to be reminded of it. Still, if the consequence was that he got to buy silk sheets with the leftover money this at least didn’t mean it was _all_ bad…

Foggy had also explained to him how to work ATMs – or, rather, got a worker at the bank to explain to Matt how to work ATMs, since it turned out neither of them had any idea how to operate something with a screen when you couldn’t see shit – and other intricacies of cashless currency. At the bank they’d claimed Matt was an exchange student from Canada to cover why a twenty-two-year-old didn’t know how to do basic things in the US.)

Now Matt’s fingers reassuringly brush over his Braille-marked permits for the cash and the buying of alcohol and the talking, as he finds a note and hands it over before taking the glass and trying to find his way back to Foggy. 

Which is when the absolute worst thing he could have ever imagined happens. 

“…no. Dean? _Dean_? Is that you? Stacy, look, it’s _Dean_!” 

“Dean! No WAY!” 

Matt freezes and his hand clamps so hard around the glass he’s surprised it doesn’t break and his heart starts beating so savagely he’s surprised it doesn’t burst. 

“Dean! It is you, _right_? Right?!” 

There’s a possessive hand on his upper arm already, and the cloying scent – how could he forget that scent, ever, it was all over him when she… – assaults his nostrils, and he has to consciously keep himself from flinching away. He’s not allowed to. 

“Hello, Ms Stacy,” he says instead, the fake, fake smile he had to put on for Foggy only twice stretching over his face like the most suffocating mask. 

“Oh my god, I can’t believe it! After Mark sold you we thought we’d never see you again! Gwen, can you believe it?!” 

“No, no way! Hey, Dean, how are you?!” the second girl is now also on him, touching his face without asking or warning him, and Matt has to make an effort not to feel sick. He doesn’t want to correct them on the name, either – he doesn’t like being called Dean, it makes him go into a bad place mentally, lets him feel like he belongs on his knees, is not allowed to speak – but he doesn’t want them to call him Matt, because that’s something that belongs to Foggy. 

“Uh, Gwen?” Stacy sounds like she’s frowning now, swaying a little – both of them a little tipsy, Matt guesses, and isn’t _that_ perfect – “You know – I don’t think he’s wearing a collar…?” 

“Huh?” Gwen pulls back, and instead gropes at Matt’s bare throat, and keeping the mask in place becomes ever harder. “You’re right. No way. You aren’t free now, aren’t you?!” she asks him, sounding disbelieving, and Matt wishes, he so _wishes_ he could legally lie, but he can feel himself replying,

“…no. I’m not.” 

“Then where’s your collar?” 

“ _In the wash_ ,” Matt replies tersely, which isn’t exactly a lie, the metal collar at least has collected a patina from disuse and would need to be cleaned before Matt put it on again, but Gwen and Stacy are apparently drunk enough that they find the answer funny, so they giggle instead of questioning it further. 

“Yeah, don’t be stupid, Gwen, who’d ever let him go?” Stacy asks, sounding like she’s grinning. “‘sides, freeing anyone is like, near impossible. Takes ages or something.” 

“Oh. Right. Yeah,” Gwen nods. “So, if you’re not free are you here with your new…?” 

She makes one of the endless gestures Matt wonders how sighted people expect him to pick up on, but he’s not in the mood right now to play the expectantly waiting blind guy, so he tries to cut this off as quickly as possible. 

“My new owner is here with me, yes. And I actually need to deliver this drink to him, so if you would excuse me…?” 

“Nooo, we’d like to meet him!” Stacy immediately protests, hanging on to Matt’s arm and rubbing up against him. “He’s gotta be rich if he lets you walk around in clothes like this, right?” she asks, tugging at Matt’s well-fitting, thin merino-wool sweater and they both laugh. Matt hopes he dies from a spontaneous aneurysm before they reach the table. 

“Oh. _Oh_. You brough’ back…people. _Pretty_ people,” Foggy says when they arrive, Matt, sadly, still alive, and his owner sounds as delighted as well as still off-his-head shit-faced. Gwen and Stacy, of course, laugh.

“ _Thank_ you, handsome. I’m Stacy,” Stacy purrs, sidling up the table and sliding into one of the chairs and Gwen adds,

“Yeah, we know Dean. We saw him at the bar and came to say hello. I’m Gwen, by the way.” 

Matt can basically hear Foggy’s frown of confusion, so he offers, in a murmur, “I’m called Matt now, Ms Gwen,” sliding Foggy’s drink toward him. This night can’t get any worse, anyway. 

“Oh!” Gwen, standing next to Matt, lets her hand fly to her mouth. “Right, he’d have obviously renamed you. Stupid.” 

Foggy doesn’t seem to get much of this, knocking back the shot while they talked, probably still happily smiling. “Oh, right, you pro’bly know Matt from class, right,” he babbles, and they laugh again, Gwen finally sitting down, too.

“Mind if we sit with you?” she asks redundantly, and Foggy emphatically shakes his head. 

“No, no, sure, this is great. I’m Foggy. C’mon Matt, sit down, too,” he says, tugging at Matt’s sleeve as if he even had a choice in the matter. 

“Soooo…” Stacy trails a manicured finger on the sticky wood of the table. “Would you like to have some fun tonight, Foggy?” 

“Fun?” Foggy’s voice perks up, muscles shifting in what is probably a big dopey grin. “I like fun.” 

“Cool. We do, too,” Gwen agrees. 

“And we _really_ like D- Matt,” Stacy corrects herself, sounding like she’s still grinning. 

None of them is currently paying much attention to Matt himself, who is clawing into the table, holding his beer like he is about to crush the glass. 

“You think we could have fun together, the… _four_ of us?” Gwen breathes into Foggy’s ear, lips brushing the outer shell just ever so slightly.

xxx

To becontinued...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you read, please review? :D Questions, fav bits, bits that don't make sense, anything's fine :) Hope you liked!


	11. Nothing Good Happens After 2 am (Except Sometimes It Might)

\---

Underneath the table, Matt can sense Foggy’s anatomy taking a twitching interest. And he wants to throw up. The one thing worse than getting fucked by an owner is getting fucked by an owner with his friends, because then you had multiple people to satisfy, whose desires inevitably always criss-crossed and it left you sore and fucked raw and probably punished in the morning, too, which just wasn’t _fair_. 

“You mean like…oh. _Yes_.” Foggy says, suddenly sounding awestruck. “Yes, I think I’d like that. Very, very much. _You’re awesome, Matt_!” he sways over for the last part to whisper, or probably intends to whisper, although he doesn’t actually lower his volume, into Matt’s ear.

Gwen and Stacy, predictably, laugh again. Matt’s only ever met them when Mark went out drinking, so by now he suspects they consist entirely of laughter, hands, alcohol and sadism. 

“Yes, he is, isn’t he?” Gwen coos, leaning closer to Foggy. “It’ll be fun. You can get to fuck all three of us. We’d like to watch, too,” she says, dropping her voice low and seductive, and Matt can sense Foggy becoming even harder at the suggestion, probably flushing if the heat radiating off him is anything to go by, before he says, 

“Uh? All… _three_? Wait, why would I-?”

“Oh, he looks _gorgeous_ when he’s impaled and begging,” Gwen says, running a hand down Matt’s back that he wishes he could shake off and it sounds like she’s leering as she adds, “You'd know that, right?” 

Foggy sounds like he’s blinking now, swaying between inebriation and brief flashes of clarity, and he turns his face toward Matt. 

“Matt? What…?”

And Matt swallows. He hadn’t wanted to say this. He hadn’t wanted to mix up Foggy up with anything of his previous life, ever. Foggy had been supposed to remain something _good_. “They, uh, know me, Foggy. Not from…class. From _before_.” 

“Yeah, from Mark. Mark lent him out to us sometimes, too,” Stacy adds lightly. “He’s, like, _really_ fun to play with. The _noises_ he makes when you push into him. And sooooo _flexible_.” 

Gwen leans forward again, nose now almost touching Foggy’s. “Should I kiss him for you to demonstrate?” she whispers. “It’s funny if you pinch his nose shut, because he’ll gasp like he means it.” 

And Matt wants to desperately black out, he can’t take this, except he knows that _if_ he blacked out it would be worse, you can’t beg owners to _not_ do things when you’re unconscious, and _sometimes_ they listen, but he can also feel how Foggy’s heartrate is rising, his temperature, too, all signs of desire and this is it, this has opened the floodgates, this is the end of everything, and Foggy opens his mouth to say, 

_“_ What the _FUCK_?!”

And Matt flinches right with the girls, because this sounds…angry. Not horny. Even though Foggy’s still half-hard, he can sense it, so what is going on? 

“You…you _know_ he’s a…a…sl- that he… _belongs_ to me?” Foggy is tilting forward heavily, his words are still muffled and laborious, he has to work to get them out without slurring, breathing heavy and coming in gasps. The girls turn to probably look at each other, confused now.

“Uh…yeah? Like I said, we knew him when he belonged to Mark. We were thinking you bought him from him or something?” 

“You…and you…you _still_ wanted to…you _asked_ me to…!” Foggy sputters, and then goes silent for a moment and then roars at the two of them “GET OUT!” Loud enough for people at other tables to startle and turn around.

“What?!”

“Wait, what the hell is -?!” Gwen and Stacy sound like their eyes are wide and expressions taken aback, both of them scrambling to their feet and retreating a half-step from Foggy who is now actually _snarling,_

“Fuck. _Off_. You make me sick! Both of you! Thinkin’ tha’- thinkin’ M- _Matt_ …!” Foggy gets up, swaying, and now people around them are rising, and Matt _knows_ this looks bad, a drunk guy yelling at pretty girls in a bar _never_ looks good, and that is why he now thinks to hell with the consequences later, if they both manage to make it out alive this is good enough. 

“Foggy! Foggy, Foggy, Foggy, _please_ , stop.” He gets up as well, grabbing Foggy’s arms to restrain him and stop him from pointing and flailing at the girls, and shoves him slightly behind himself. “Sorry!” he raises his voice, angling his face at no one in particular, “He has just had a bit too much to drink! We’re leaving now, sorry,” he says, at the same time grabbing his cane, hoping that maybe that helps a little – it’s a bit of a novelty to be treated like an invalid again as a pretend-free blind man, instead of being kicked around like a disabled slave, and he can’t say he likes either much, but probably prefers the former - and then tries to manhandle an angry Foggy out of the booth, past the girls – “Sorry Ms Gwen, sorry Ms Stacy,” he mumbles, the words tasting like bile on his tongue - and toward the exit. Maybe he’ll be lucky and Foggy will neither remember how strong nor how oddly precise his movements were when he wakes up in the morning. 

“No, Matt, I want – they don’ – this is bull- _ow_!” 

“Sorry, Foggy. So sorry,” Matt says, terror of his mounting disobedience slowly starting to seep through now that the immediate danger is over. He still wants to get away from the bar, though, just in case the two girls decide to tell anyone that Foggy is running around with an apparently collarless slave. 

“I promise you can punish me later for all of this, but for now, let’s just get to the taxi stand, okay?” 

“Don’t wanna. Punish you. _Or_ get in’o a taxi,” Foggy slurs, and tries to break free, but Matt is better balanced and already so much stronger than him that it is an absolutely fruitless attempt. 

“Whu-wha? Why are you so…Matt, why are you so _strong_?” Foggy asks, mood shifting slightly from anger to confusion. “You’re blin’, right? Blind people can't, like, fight others. I think,” Foggy says, sounding frowny, and Matt decides to ignore the slight sting and instead focus on the more dangerous implication. Namely, that owners don’t like slaves more powerful than them. 

Or at least, more powerful slaves that walk around unchained and uncuffed. 

“I’m blind, Foggy, but I can still train. Remember how you allowed me to go train at Fogwell’s?” Matt asks, soothingly, thankful that what he thinks is the cab stand coming into view now at the end of the block. There are little things on top of the cars standing in a row next to the curb, slow heartbeats on the driver seats, so this is his best guess. 

“Oh, right. I guess…I guess tha’ was a stupid ques’on, then, huh, Matt?” he asks, shaking his head and then apparently immediately becoming woozy from it, judging from the fact that he almost topples over and brings them both to the ground. 

“No stupid questions, Foggy,” Matt says, more on autopilot as he tries to figure out a way to get his cane back off the ground while not letting Foggy fall down. 

“No’ true,” Foggy protests, “Like wha’ those two girls said. Tha’ was a stupid question. No,” Foggy scowls, apparently getting angry again. “Tha’ was a _shit_ question.” 

“Yes, Foggy. Yes, it was,” Matt agrees, because a slave is supposed to, but also because he _agrees_ , any question about loaning him out for sex _is_ a shit question. He’s still not quite sure why Foggy refused, he clearly was interested and he knows from other people’s reactions that Gwen and Stacy are pretty - maybe Foggy’s becoming possessive after all? – but Matt can’t quite dwell on the fact, he has to get Foggy home, and then maybe hope Foggy is too tired to fuck him tonight after that. (Although Mark never was.) 

“Ask _me_ whe’er they c’d kiss _you_. Assholes,” Foggy mutters, and Matt swallows – shitshitshit, maybe Foggy is angry because Gwen and Stacy thought he was more attractive than Foggy? He doesn’t particularly care for looks, but he does _not_ want his nose broken or the skin on his face burnt so he doesn’t offend his owner – Matt takes a deep breath. This is Foggy. _Foggy wouldn’t do that_ , he tries to tell himself and almost believes it. 

“I’m sorry, Foggy,” he tries anyway, sounding as submissive as he dares while still essentially wrangling Foggy along on the sidewalk like an angry-drunk young bull. 

“Wait. Whadda _you_ sorry for?” Foggy shifts slightly in his grip and Matt senses that he’s looking at him now, tone still befuddled. “Holdin’ your nose shut and shi’ like tha’. _They_ wan’ed to abuse _you_ , Matt,” he points out, like Matt has somehow not been paying attention in class. 

“Uh,” Matt manages, suddenly dumbstruck. “Sorry for…ruining your night?” he tries, although he is feeling at a completely loose end. It’s been far, far too long that any free person has ever taken _his_ side when it came to opposing views on what should happen to him on any given night. 

And now Foggy actually _giggles_. “Maaattt. Don’ be dumb. Nights with you are _awesome_. How’d you _ever_ ruin them?” 

(This line, much later, will be content of much debate.) 

“Well, right now I don’t think we can ever return to this bar,” Matt says, not quite sure how he is supposed to process the warm fuzzies inside himself whenever Foggy says stuff like that. 

“I d’n’t care. ‘twas a _dumb_ bar,” Foggy replies, now hanging heavily onto Matt’s shoulder as they continue toward the stand, speed now just slightly above an enthusiastically wandering sand dune. 

(Years later, Matt will also be stumbling through a sewer, injured and dragging a near unconscious Russian mobster with him, and thinking ‘yes, this is still faster than the night I had to get Foggy to this cab stand’.)

“’n the girls were dumb, too. Askin’ me whether I’d fuck you for ‘em,” Foggy grumbles in the present, and Matt shifts uncomfortably, because he’d rather discuss the best way to punch hot nails through his ear lobes than talk about Foggy finally using him. 

“Matt, I wouldn’t wanna…do stuff to you f’r _anyone_ ,” Foggy says instead, which is a slight relief. 

“Thank you, Foggy,” Matt says, meaning it, even though Foggy is obviously off on his own monologue here, but he seems to appreciate Matt’s input anyway, humming contentedly before continuing. 

“I mean, hah, ‘course I’d like to…” he hesitates briefly, before the next words, “kiss you.” And then he shifts them, tilts his head back and up a little, and presses a kiss right on Matt’s temple, before devolving into a giggle. “C’d kiss you all over, if you wanted. ‘n more. Bu’ ‘m no’ gonna.” 

“…oh,” Matt croaks, because his brain has just short-circuited. Foggy’s _kissed_ him. And yup, there was a small surge of _shock_ , but somehow not the terror Matt had expected. 

And certainly not the sudden _hotness_ surging downwards inside him. 

“F-Foggy,” he rasps, not sure whether the next words he wanted to say would have been _please, no_ , or _please, yes, get it over with_ , or just _please_ , but Foggy doesn’t even appear to have heard him. 

“Yeah, no, no’ unless you’re free an wann’ed to, ob- obv’usly,” Foggy says, and then Matt thinks he is actually raising a lecturing finger, “Cuz, Matt, tha’ would be _wrong_.”

 _Not from legal standpoint_ , Matt is tempted to say, but bites his tongue. Obviously neither of them is in a state to consent by now, Foggy too drunk and Matt too not-exactly-a-person, which means anything like that would be a terrible idea. Matt steers them, finally, finally to the cab stand and starts knocking on doors to see which ones are free. Radar sense is great, but a switched-on ‘occupied’ sign it does not perceive. On the third one he gets lucky, and is allowed to wrestle Foggy inside, deciding to stay on the backseat together with him rather than ride in the front. 

“M’ not ever gonna hurt you, Matt,” Foggy mumbles while Matt is leaning forward to tell the driver their address. He yelps when Foggy abruptly clamps him into a hug, yanking him back against the backrest and against Foggy. “I _hate_ everyone who hurt you, ever.”

“That’s nice of you, Foggy,” Matt says dutifully, going against his training by trying to carefully extricate himself instead of staying pliant to get both of their seat belts on, while hoping the cab driver is not paying too much attention to what Foggy is saying or that Foggy doesn’t let anything slip. A slave out with cash, handling their obviously inebriated owner in the non-submissive way he is doing, sitting in the back of the cab instead of kneeling on the floor, and giving the driver directions to take them god knows where without checking in with his owner would look suspicious for sure.

“You’re the bes’ frien’ I ever had. I think I love you, Matty.” 

_Jesus Christ_. 

“Same to you, Foggy,” Matt says weakly, and though he tries to keep it light, can feel his own voice growing hoarse. 

“C’n I kiss you on the mouth?” Foggy says, still slurring the words but leaning close, eager. 

And Matt can feel his heart both try to drop into his stomach as well as leap into his throat. 

He had _known_ this was coming. 

And he doesn’t really have a choice here. This is it.

 _At least even drunk Foggy will be kind, I know he will,_ Matt tries to tell himself, briefly closing his eyes, and obediently taking his shades off.

“Of course, Foggy.”

And Foggy leans in, Matt can feel him still half-hard in his jeans despite the alcohol, and growing harder now, his heart rate rising. One of his hands comes up to finally to grasp the back of Matt’s neck, holding him possessively in place like Matt would have expected him from the very first day. Matt obediently closes his eyes, he knows people find it more romantic that way, lets his lips just slightly be parted like he was trained to, in case Foggy wants to enter him with his tongue, and holds himself pliant and still, waiting…

And then blinks when Foggy finally _moves_ , but actually pushes Matt’s head far too far downward, and tilts his face forward to plant another lingering kiss on Matt’s forehead. And then the hand on the back of his neck drops away to allow Matt to lift his head and Foggy has already let his own flop against the backrest again. 

“…Foggy?” Matt asks, all kinds of confused. The kiss hadn’t felt _bad_ , but this wasn’t exactly what he had expected.

Foggy, half-slumped against the backseat and the door, makes a floppy hand-gesture. “…aah, nah, Matt, I can’ do that. ‘m not gonna do it, ‘s no’ right. You’re already more th’n I deserve ‘nyway. You’re the _best_.” 

“Uh,” Matt replies, intelligently. 

“S’ry for kissin’ you,” Foggy sounds like he’s pulling a face now. “Di’nt mean to.” 

“I…didn’t mind,” Matt replies, which is true. Getting kissed on the forehead, like something _precious_ , had been… _weird_ , yes, but also…nice.

“Noooo, Matt, I know I shoul’n’t do things like tha’,” Foggy sounds briefly sad now, then confused. “I think, ‘nyway. Matt, am I drunk, Matt?”

“Um,” Matt tries. “Yes?”

“Mmh.” Foggy nods, sounding contemplative. “I fig’rd.” 

The next thing that happens is, of course, that Foggy leans forward and vomits all over the cab’s floor. 

Xxx

Xxx

“Matt? Oh god, Matt, I’m dead.” 

On his own bed, heart pounding slightly faster now that his owner is starting to wake, Matt rises to pad over. “Good morning, Foggy. No, you’re not.”

“Well, I _wish_ I was.”

“I don’t,” Matt says softly, but he doesn’t think Foggy has heard it. 

“What time is it?” 

“Some time past eleven, Saturday morning. I’ve prepared aspirin, and breakfast, and cool packs,” Matt says, louder. “Anything else you need, tell me, I’ll get it.” 

“Naw, Matt, that’s fine, you don’t hafta…don’t hafta…oooooh, god, maybe one of those cool packs? Please. And pull those curtains closed,” Foggy moans and rolls over. “What the hell happened last night, I can’t remember anything at all. Don’t ever let me drink this much again.”

Matt, currently closing the curtains grins, because _that_ is an order that he likes. Also he can feel himself calming down a little, because if Foggy doesn’t remember anything, he also doesn’t remember how Matt manhandled him against his will, or did anything else he wasn’t supposed to. 

And he doesn’t remember how he told Matt that he wanted to kiss him, and wanted to do _more_ to him, but that he never would. Or would let other people touch him. Not even when he was black-out drunk. 

Not until Matt was free. 

Matt smiles, feeling a tension he has been carrying with him for _months_ slowly dissolve like morning mist. 

“Nothing much happened, Foggy,” he says, with a small smile as he hands him one of the cool packs. “You were a perfect gentleman.” 

xxx

“Huh?” 

“Well, until you vomited on the cab floor.” 

“Oh god,” Foggy groans, but then they both have to laugh, and yeah, Matt thinks, he could be safe here for a few years. 

xxx

TBC...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the HIMYM titles continue. Hope you liked, and if you read, please review? :D


	12. A New Order

“That was…wow, that was certainly something. You were _scary_ out there, man!” Foggy gives Matt a dazed (it would be embarrassing, actually, if Matt could see it) grin as they’re walking back after class. Mid-terms have been over for a while, finals are looming, and this was the first mock-trial they had to participate in and, truthfully, Foggy thinks he’s now a bit star-struck. “You took her completely apart, she was close to _crying_ , dude! I didn’t know you had that kind of killer instinct in you.” 

“Well. It’s not exactly the kind of quality any of my previous owners would have wanted to foster in me,” Matt says with a smile that’s just slightly dry, but he still seems to be preening under Foggy’s praise, even if he’s trying to hide it. 

“Well, they didn’t know what they were missing out on. That was _hot_ ,” Foggy says before he can stop himself. “I mean, uh. In a, er, completely…objective. Platonic. Way. And all.” 

Thankfully, Matt snorts. “Don’t worry. By now I feel pretty safe that you’re not going to up and ravish me, Foggy. I’d leave stars on your Yelp review on that point, even – 5/5, would be purchased again. ” 

Foggy almost chokes on his coffee, but then manages to turn the choking into a hacking laugh (because the alternative would be to cry thinking that it would legally be within his right to do that to Matt). During the last few weeks, Matt has seemed to relax around him a lot more, and Foggy thinks that any aspect of his enslavement that Matt manages to make morbid jokes about is a sign of him feeling _safe_ about something - or at least, comfortable enough around Foggy. Foggy still remembers how their first moment of human connection was probably Matt’s blind quip about ‘not having walked into any walls yet’, and it’s...like a small life-raft in that fucked-up ocean of a system they’re both treading water in. (and yeah, maybe he _would_ like to ravish Matt, but he also knows he never would, not while Matt belongs to him and can’t really say no, and he is so, so glad that Matt seems to believe him in this.) 

“I feel flattered,” he says instead, playing over any residual discomfort at the topic and instead tries to change it. “But seriously, great going. I think half of the class is now in love with you, she was a grade-A bitch. You’re probably their new hero.” 

Matt shrugs. “Well, good thing she didn’t know all she’d have had to do was order me to shut up. Not much I could have done, then.” 

Foggy suppresses a grimace – Matt’s voice has a bitter edge again, which it always gets when he is reminding himself more of the limitations of his status than to celebrate the successes he achieves despite it – so he tries to steer into the other direction. 

“I saw the professor talking to you afterwards, too. What did he say?” Foggy asks, hoping there is more praise to be had. 

“Oh. Mainly ‘Great work, Murdock’,” Matt shrugs. “Also recommended two text books that would help me hone my argument more precisely on the points she got me on.” 

Foggy scoffs. “Just ‘great work’? Dude clearly doesn’t know how to recognize the next Supreme Court Judge.” 

“I liked what he said,” Matt defends him with a mild smile. “I like getting called by a last name.” 

Foggy takes a mental note, and when he, two weeks later, makes a comment of ‘Yo, Murdock, if you’re not gonna eat that last, poor taco, don’t cry about it being gone in a second. Tacos have feelings too, and you’re neglecting them’, he thinks the smile flashing over Matt’s face is not just from the lame joke. 

xxx

“Matt? Can you get the pizza out?” Foggy asks one night absent-mindedly, not actually taking his eyes from the screen of his laptop. (His old, rickety laptop. Not a StarkPad, but he already thinks he got the better end of the deal by now.) “I’m on a roll here, and I’m worried that if I stop writing now, it’ll all vanish.” 

“Ah…sure…” Matt’s reply is kind of mumbled, but he can hear movement behind him, so Foggy figures pizza time is fairly soon and will come as a well-deserved reward. 

This train of thought vanishes when there’s a _crash!_ , and a startled gasp from Matt to go with it. When Foggy whirls around, he can see Matt holding his hand which appears to be burned and the pizza, as well as the plate it was on, in pieces on the floor. 

“Matt! Is everything okay?!” Fuck his essay, Foggy is already on his feet and heedlessly stepping over the china debris to get to Matt and turn on the cold water. “Jesus, get it under the water! What happened?” 

“I, ah, wasn’t paying attention. Burned myself on the oven when I reached in to get the pizza. Sorry,” Matt mumbles, and now that _Foggy_ is paying attention, he can actually see that Matt looks far worse than just someone who gave themselves a minor burn in the kitchen. His slave is pale, looks a bit disoriented and slightly shivering with his hand underneath the running water Foggy guided it to, and has shady valleys underneath his eyes that would make California jealous. 

Matt isn’t usually this clumsy, either. 

“Matt,” Foggy begins, “when I just asked you whether you could get the pizza out, were you technically sleeping? Because of the all-nighter you pulled last night because of which you were really fucking tired, which I had completely forgotten about until now, until you burned yourself because of it?”

“Uh,” Matt blinks at him, even more unfocused than usual, as his sleed-addled brain apparently tries to make sense of the question. “Yes?” he tries. 

“Then why would you _do_ that?” Foggy blurts out. “Jesus, Matt, I’m sorry, I’m a complete asshole, I swear I had no idea you were trying to sleep! Seriously, you know you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to!” 

At this, Matt finally gives him a tired smile, seemingly almost amused by how worked up Foggy is. 

“Foggy,” he says, wearily, “I know you’re treating me…fantastically, really, but you’re still my owner. When you give me an order, I legally have to obey.” 

“But…that wasn’t an order, that was…I dunno, a request! I was asking for a favour, not _demanding_ one,” Foggy protests and at the same time can feel the dread rising in him, because now he realizes that he’s done that a lot. ‘Hey Matt, stop studying, let’s go get coffee.’ ‘Matt, dammit, I can’t tie this cravat. Help me.’ ‘Matt, can you swing by the cafeteria on your way back and get us some of those delicious cheese pretzels?’ 

“You…you mean every time that I asked you to do something, you…” Foggy can feel his throat close in on him, because he is suddenly feeling like the floor is dropping away beneath his feet, because he is the worst person in the universe and deserves a straight trip downstairs. 

“ – had to do as you ask, yes.” Matt finishes the sentence for him. “But, Foggy-” 

_A slave is happy to serve you_ , Foggy is barely able to listen to what Matt is saying, can’t help but remember all the disgusting quotes from the horrifying slave owner’s manual in his head instead, _Trained right, they will find their life’s fulfilment in obeying your orders_. Lies and bullshit, all of it, and now Foggy can feel his breath coming faster and faster, words rising around him, roaring like a wall of sound that’s closing in on him like he’s at the centre of a storm of echoes, and it’s all his own voice, going ‘Oh shut up, dude, that’s ridiculous,’ and ‘No, no, you _need_ to try this, Matt, no arguing’ and ‘Come here, listen to this!’ and ‘Tell me what you think, be honest’ and ‘Bullshit, get off your arse, we’re going out tonight!’ and ‘Uh, no, sorry buddy, but you have to get your hair cut this week, you’re starting to look like a well-dressed hobo and only one of us can really rock that look’ and a _chorus_ to that, of ‘Yes, Foggy’, ‘Okay, Foggy,’ ‘Of course, Foggy’, and _never_ ‘No, Foggy’ because because because, all of these had been _orders_ when he thought he was being _a friend_ , when he thought that Matt was doing everything they did because he _liked_ Foggy and _agreed_ with his opinions, _wanted_ to do stuff with him, when, really, he had been _forcing_ Matt to do things _every single day_ -! 

“Foggy! Are you alright? Can you hear me?! Foggy! Foggy, _breathe_!” 

And then there is suddenly Matt on top of him, looking scared out of his mind, one hand clawing into his shoulder and one hand – one surprisingly _strong_ hand – pushing on his chest, and Foggy – Foggy is lying on the _floor_ , what the _fuck_ -?

“…M-Matt?” he manages to gasp, incredibly confused for a moment what just happened, right before he remembers what he did, and he can feel the bile shooting up straight his esophagus. 

“…I think I’m going to be sick.” 

“I’m going to get a bucket,” Matt says immediately, rolling back onto his feet from his knees in one easy smooth movement, his strong, solid hands, the only solid thing Foggy has, leaving his shoulder and chest and before Foggy can think, he has already grabbed Matt’s wrist, gasping out a terrified,

“No! Please-” 

And Matt immediately goes utterly still in his grip, his entire body language yielding to him. Like his body belongs to Foggy and he isn’t even allowed to move it without permission. 

Foggy yanks his own hand back as if burned.

“Oh god, Matt, I’m _the worst_ ,” he chokes the words out, bile still burning down below in his throat, but he doesn’t feel like throwing up any more. He can’t clean himself that way anyway. 

“What? No, Foggy, what’s wrong-?” Matt looks and sounds worried and concerned now, his hand still unsurely hovering in front of Foggy like he doesn’t know whether he’s allowed to take it down. “Please, tell me how I can help,” he says earnestly and far, far too calm for this situation. 

“How _you_ can-?” Foggy starts to reply and he wants to _laugh_ , harsh and grating and utterly without humour. “You _could_ help by hitting me for being so incredibly _stupid_.” 

At this, Matt swallows. “Um. Could I also help another way?”

Foggy groans and wants to hide his face in his hands. He does so. Matt can’t see him either way, but he hopes the gesture counts.

“Foggy?”

“Matt, I, I…can’t. I didn’t, I didn’t _know_ ,” he says, desperately. “Matt, I never wanted to _force_ you to do anything.” 

“Foggy, I...Foggy, it’s _okay_ ,” Matt says, and then, hesitantly, “Do I have permission to touch you?” 

And Foggy immediately wants to cringe _more_ , because _he_ didn’t ask permission a lot at all before touching Matt after their first night. Instead, he’d touched him like any friend, even though any _free_ friend could have shrugged unwanted touches off. “Yeah,” he mumbles, hating himself a little because even if he doesn’t feel like he deserves it right now, he could do with the comfort. 

“Foggy,” Matt says, and now he’s kneeling in front of him again, his hand rubbing Foggy’s upper arm. “Foggy, it’s fine. Seriously. Look, none of your orders were _hard_ ,” he says, like that makes it _better_ , and Foggy contemplates sticking his head into the oven, right before Matt says, “And by the way? Mostly I also _wanted_ to do them, okay? I _like_ doing things for you,” he says, and there is a slight smile, tugging at the edge of his mouth, as if he was almost amused at Foggy freaking out about this. But…

“I made you cut your _hair_ ,” Foggy moans. 

“Foggy, I have no idea what my hair looks like,” Matt points out. “You telling me it needs a cut is the best guess I get.”

Foggy moans again, cringing harder as the rest of the memory comes back, now. (‘Foggy, what should I get it cut like?’ Matt had asked, which Foggy had put down then as the cluelessness of _any_ normal man at a barber shop, never mind a blind one, but now he realizes that Matt would have assumed that _he was supposed to look like Foggy would want him to._ ) 

In front of him, Matt sighs, almost as if Foggy is being _silly_. “Foggy, I’ve had owners who just got someone to shear our hair completely _off_. _You_ took me to a hair salon and told me to just tell the stylist to do whatever she thought looked best, something I was completely fine with. I even got to tell her how long I wanted it cut and everything. Foggy, _this is a better life than I could have ever imagined,_ ” Matt says, and he sounds utterly serious, and Foggy kind of wants to cry. 

“But…I…I think I must have ordered you to do something nearly every _day_ …” 

“And I _didn’t_ _mind_ , Foggy. Mostly I like being useful, you know that.” 

“Augh,” Foggy lets his head drop back against his bed. They need to get off the floor sometime soon, this isn’t any way to spend the night. He is slowly calming down, now, trying to tell himself that yes, he _has_ fucked up, royally so by assuming Matt was doing everything out of his own free will when he _wasn’t_ , not technically anyway, but right now Matt is also kneeling in front of him, not looking hurt or scared or humiliated, just earnest and low-key concerned, so maybe, just _maybe_ it’s not too late to learn from this. To make this _better_. Only one word Matt has said tugs at his memory and Foggy hears himself asking -

“’Mostly’?”

Matt grimaces. “Well. I wasn’t happy when I had to get you cheese pretzels. They smell horrible.” The edge of his mouth twitches. “I take back one yelp-star for that.” 

“God, _Matt_ ,” Foggy says, all at once torn between laughing and crying. He allows himself to lift his hand slightly, hovering over Matt’s upper arm and then asks, “Uh. Can _I_ …touch you?” 

“I’m yours,” Matt says, easily and comfortably, and then adds as if he could feel Foggy pull a face at this, “And yes, Foggy, I trust you. You’ve never done anything to me I wasn’t okay with.” 

“What an endorsement,” Foggy mutters under his breath, but then clamps down on that when Matt gives a slight frown, because right now, that isn’t helping. He takes a deep breath. “Okay, I hereby apologize for all accidental cheese-pretzel-related orders. And…everything else. Also, can we get off the floor now? I think my back is killing me.” 

“Sure. Do you want to sit down on the bed?” Matt rocks back onto his heels again, his hand closing gently but firmly around Foggy’s forearm to help him get up and settles them both on the mattress. Matt sits next to him, close, their knees touching. “For what it’s worth, I…liked the hugging. And the guiding is really helpful. And I like...this,” Matt says, his head nodding at what could be everything or nothing. He sighs. “And no, I don’t like that I don’t have a _choice_ about obeying, but…I never hated doing anything for you.” 

And now Foggy swallows, because as impressive as that sentence is, and as confusing the feelings it brings are with that he doesn’t know how to deal with, there is one thing that needs to be corrected, fast. 

“Okay,” he tries as he uprights himself again, “Okay. So. According to what they taught you, is there a way for me to give you a…superceding order? Like, an order that is automatically attached to anything I say to you when I’m being an unthinking asshole?” 

“Um,” Matt says, again looking slightly bemused. “Sure. You just need to tell me that a rule has priority, it’s easy.” 

“Right,” Foggy takes another deep breath, mentally composes what he wants to say, and then turns to Matt again. “Okay. Official new order here, Murdock,” he says, and the way Matt’s face seems to just slightly light up at the use of his last name makes Foggy hope that he’s not going to destroy any trust he’s been trying to build up so far. Or make Matt go back into his slave-headspace again, when he’s been working so hard to get him out of it. Maybe the address will help drive home that they’re still Matt and Foggy in this conversation, not owner and property. 

“I don’t want you to obey any order given by me unless you want to. That supercedes all other orders unless further notice. Okay?” 

Matt looks at him, slightly surprised. “O…kay?” 

“Good.” Foggy nods, firmly, and then hopes his voice doesn’t sound as nervous as he feels when he says, “Now get up and dance the Macarena for me, Matty.” 

He rates it as a gratifying success when Matt instead bursts out laughing. (Not quite a success yet, of course. Matt has laughed at Foggy’s ‘suggestions’ - that he now realizes were commands - before, and then still did them. Now, though…) 

“Hah,” Matt says, and he’s giving Foggy a grin that seems to be trying to be smug, but there is honest to good gratitude in his voice, and Foggy wishes it didn’t have to be there. “No.” 

“Yes!” Foggy punches the air, mirroring Matt’s grin with his own. “Bro-fist, now. That order isn’t optional, by the way.” 

And Matt laughs, and raises his own fist obediently, so Foggy can bump it. 

“Alright. Now get back to bed, Murdock, so I can clean up and in the future make my damn pizza myself,” Foggy nudges him with his shoulder, and then rises to do as he said he would. 

Matt huffs amusement from where he’s sitting, but when Foggy looks up from his cleaning work a few minutes later, he can see Matt is already stretched out and out cold. Only this time Foggy can _actually_ hope that he did it because he wanted to, not because Foggy told him to, and so he’s able to smile when he pulls the covers over his knocked-out roommate.

xxx

  


TBC...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here you go!:D Hope you liked and if you read, please review - it's exam season here, I can do with any morale-boosting I can get! ;) Fav bits, lines, things you'd like to see - I wanna hear it all and cherish each and every single one of them :D


	13. Devil in the Details

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, new chapter and it hasn't even been a year, what a wild and whacko world! All I can say is that this story had basically already been finished, but then a few commenters pointed out it could do with some subplots that *aren't* resolved in the same chapter, and I agreed, so there started the editing process all over again. Results may be seen in the following chapters. Meanwhile, hope you like!

Xxx 

It’s close to midnight, and Matt can hear his heart pounding in his chest. 

He’s sitting at his writing desk, back turned toward Foggy who he can sense currently trying to struggle out of his sweat pants and into a pair of newer jeans. He’s been meaning to say something for ten minutes now, but whenever he wants to open his mouth, nothing seems to come out. And any moment now, Foggy will – 

“Matty? Buddy? Aren’t you going to get ready?” 

And Matt presses his lips together so hard that they must be a thin white line. 

No. No, he isn’t ready. 

“C’mon, what are you doing, still sitting there? We wanted to be there half an hour ago!” 

_No, *you* wanted to be there. *I* didn’t_ , a voice in his head says, and Matt can feel his heart beating faster. It’s a party at one of the more prestigious fraternities Foggy managed to get an invite to and he has been excitedly talking about it all day. 

Matt still hasn’t managed to tell him that he really, _really_ doesn’t want to go. Not to that kind of party. 

He shifts his hands from the desk surface to the arm rests of the chair, gripping them tightly as he can feel the sweat pricking at the back of his neck. He still doesn’t quite manage to turn around. 

_You don’t have to obey any order you don’t want to,_ the words from last week keep repeating themselves in his head. And yeah, sure, that thing is easy for an owner to say, just as long as what Matt wants to do happens to align with what Foggy wants him to do – which, until now, it actually had. Matt _hadn’t_ been lying when he had told Foggy he didn’t mind the actual tasks. Matt likes studying law. Matt likes going out with Foggy for coffee. Matt likes contributing to their little household with his part of chores. 

Matt likes coming over to Foggy when he calls him. 

Only now this is threatening to turn into a repeat performance of that horrible night at the bar with Gwen and Stacy. And while that night turned out halfway okay in the end, Matt is well aware that he had been _very_ lucky, and if Foggy hadn’t been coherent enough to say something, he could very well have wound up fucked anyway. But Foggy doesn’t remember that night at all, and Matt doesn’t care about telling him about it. He bites his lip. This would be the first time he refused Foggy something Foggy really wanted. If he did this, there was a good chance Foggy would reconsider what it really meant giving someone the right to object. Maybe reconsider that standing order, too. 

But…this was also _Foggy.._. 

Matt can feel himself slowly being torn in two by his doubts and hopes, almost worse than it had felt when even the biggest of his owners had used him and he thought he would be split apart. 

Oh, he is well aware of how some owners think it’s ‘ _romantic’_ to treat their slaves nicely, even promise to free them when they never would, feel good about themselves like someone spoiling a puppy - right until you had to put down an adult dog who had become too bothersome and demanding. You were only kept in the illusion of freedom as long as you did everything they wanted anyway, but. 

But. 

Foggy didn’t _seem_ like that type at all. 

_And he called you a friend._

“I…I don’t…” Matt can feel himself starting to shake, but manages to suppress it. This is Foggy. _I don’t have any reason to be scared_ , Matt tries to tell himself. He is also surprised because it feels like he believes it. 

“I don’t actually want to go to that party, Foggy.” _Please don’t make me._

“Uh,” says Foggy, half in and half out of his coat. “What?” 

And now, Matt’s entire self-preservation instincts are shouting at him, _what are you *doing*, go along with it, make him happy, as long as he is happy *you* are happy, you get to pretend you’re free,_ and then another voice, an older one, and the one that is probably responsible for at least half of the whippings he ever got, but also the one that has never been silenced by any of them, says, 

“I don’t want to go.” 

And he has said it aloud, and Foggy is terrifyingly silent, and Matt has never wished more to be able to read people’s faces and not just their heartbeats than now. 

“You didn’t say you wanted to stay home four hours ago when I got us the invites.” 

And Matt wants to kinda drop onto the floor and stay on his knees forever. 

“I’m sorry,” he swallows. 

“Uh…what for? Matty, are you okay?” Foggy’s voice has changed tones now, going from the flat, emotionless one that Matt couldn’t tell whether it was angry or irritated or just confused to plain concerned in a second. 

“I – yes. I’m. I’m healthy enough to be taken to that party,” Matt says, hating himself for saying it, but he doesn’t want to wriggle out of this with lying and false pretenses. (And besides, Foggy still called him _Matty_. Maybe that meant something?) 

(It had slipped out just two weeks ago. Matt had noticed that Foggy had started calling him Murdock, usually in jocular, easy-bantering context and he had relished that, liked being Matt, liked being a _Murdock_ again, his father’s son - even if the memory still hurt, even if this had never been what his father would have wanted for him, he was sure. But it had been at some other point, when he had been lying on his bed, drowsy from sleep-deprivation through cram night, and Foggy had stumbled in, had one look at his incredibly unproductive-in-the-food-department-slave, and said, ‘Hey. Matty. You look pretty beat. How about we order in tonight?’ 

Matt’s eyes had basically shot open to stare ahead wildly and Foggy had abruptly sounded like he’d swallowed half of his tongue. 

‘Oh, uh, fuck, I’m sorry. I didn’t…it just slipped out, but I should’ve asked you whether you were okay with any nicknames, I know it’s not okay to re-name a person-“ he’d babbled, heart beat ratchetting up as Matt (later) thought he’d probably been panicking, thinking that Matt likely wouldn’t have any positive memories attached to someone calling him by cutesy endearments, except – 

“I – it’s okay, Foggy,” he had said, and was fairly proud of the way he managed to keep all of the pain out of his voice and instead let only the honest warmth remain. “I don’t mind you calling me…Matty. It doesn’t have,” he swallowed, “anything _bad_ attached.” 

“Oh. Oh, good. Okay, then,” Foggy had breathed out a sigh of relief. “You just looked like a deer in the headlights, there.” 

“Just unexpected, s’all,” Matt had said, pushing himself up from his bed and swinging his legs over the side. “Would you like me to get the menus from the delivery places?” 

“Nah, you just sit and think about what you’d like to have,” Foggy had waved him off and then started to rifle through the organized chaos on his desk. Matt, glad to have Foggy’s back turned to him, permitted himself to drop his head, fists briefly clenching once so hard it hurt, and then quietly exhaled, letting them uncurl. 

It’s Foggy’s right to name him in whatever way he wishes. Of course it is, even if Foggy does his level best to let him forget that. Only… 

_Matty_ had only ever been his name when he was still someone who was loved. _Maybe_ , just _maybe_ , Matt hopes, Foggy won’t ever call him like that when…things get bad and the memory doesn’t have to be tainted. 

(He doesn’t. It turns out, while ‘Murdock’ is mostly used when they’re having easy, ridiculous conversations, ‘Matty’ makes an appearance only when either Foggy or himself are exhausted, tired or aching from a workout or hurting from too many hours spent at a writing desk. It’s always, always accompanied by affection, or fondness, and Matt has very much no idea how to deal with it, except to try and swallow the inexplicable surge of warmth he feels whenever Foggy says it.)) 

“Um…” back in the present, Foggy still sounds concerned. “Kinda not what I asked, buddy. Also, you’re looking pretty pale, there. What’s wrong?” Foggy is beside him now, coat shrugged off and forgotten on the floor, and staring down at his face. “Jesus, Matt, you’re _shaking_.” 

“I’m sorry,” Matt repeats again, swallowing. “It’s just – “ he takes a deep breath. “These kind of parties aren’t much fun for slaves.” 

“…oh. _Oh_ ,” Foggy manages. There is a beat of silence, during which Foggy doesn’t point out that technically, no one knows about Matt being a slave, and instead, after a few more moments, he asks quietly, “Matt. Were you _scared_ to tell me you didn’t want to go there?” 

“Yes,” Matt says before he can stop himself, teeth snapping shut in a flinch as soon as the word is out. “Sorry. I didn’t mean – I – Foggy, you’ve _never_ done anything – “ 

“Matt,” Foggy says, and Matt shuts up instantly, breathing slightly elevated. “Oh, Matt,” Foggy says again, putting his hands on Matt’s shoulders and it’s like a relief for both of them, they can both feel Matt instantly relaxing under Foggy’s grip instead of tensing up more. 

“Matt,” Foggy says for the third time, “I’m really, really glad you said that.” 

“Said what?” Matt manages, past the knot in his throat, “That I’m scared?” 

“Yes. I mean, no. Okay, _maybe_ – no. What I _meant_ ,” Foggy says, sounding like he isn’t actually quite sure himself what he wants to say, “What I _meant_ was that I’m glad you said ‘no’ when you meant it. Because,” and now Foggy actually sounds kind of nervous, “even though – even though I had _said_ that you don’t have to obey any order you don’t want to, I didn’t know whether you would. And I, uh, was scared that you only came with me to lunch and to study group and shopping because you felt you had to, not because you wanted to, or.” Foggy swallows, hard. “Liked being around me.” 

“But I like being around you,” Matt instantly objects, frowning, and by now it really shouldn’t be a surprise anymore to hear himself say things like that, effortlessly and unthinkingly and true, except he’s saying them to his legal owner, and so it still _is_. 

“I _really_ do, Foggy,” he states again. “You’re kind. And funny. You’re smart without hanging it over people. I enjoy listening to your descriptions and I…in the morning, I look forward to going to class together, having lunch together even if the food is terrible and going home with you,” _because you don’t make me beg for my food, or force me along on a leash, or hurt me when we get home,_ he doesn’t say out loud and Foggy’s breathing starts to sound funny as he goes on, so Matt hurries to make his closing statement, voice as level and rational as he can, “So yeah, I like being around you. I just don’t…like going to that kind of party. Is that okay?” 

“Yeah, Matt, of course it is,” Foggy says, and now he kind of sounds like he is choking and Matt suppresses a swallow when he can sense the faintest trace of saltwater in the air. Shit, has he made Foggy _cry_ now? 

“Thank you, Foggy,” he says quickly and with a smile. Right now, his instinct is to be on his knees, nuzzling at Foggy to thank him properly, kiss his shoes, his hands, like a slave should, but he shakes that impulse off. He knows what to do now. He raises himself. 

“Um,” is then everything he manages, arms awkwardly half-raised and spread, because somehow, turning the standard thank-you line of ‘would you like to use me, sir, please’ into ‘would you like to _hug_ me, sir,’ would _definitely_ sound weird. 

Foggy makes a sniffing noise. “Uh,” he says. “Dude, is that a hug invitation?” 

“You told me that’s what I can do when I’d like to thank you,” Matt replies. “I’m also told hugs are this great platonic thing between guys.” _And I prefer this to kissing your shoes, especially since you stepped into something weird during lunch hour today,_ is what he doesn’t say, but apparently he doesn’t need to. 

Foggy makes a small choking noise that sounds like a cross between a gasp and a chortle, and then he has already stepped forward into the offered hug and squeezed, albeit gently. 

“ _Matt_ ,” he says into the fabric of Matt’s shirt, as if that one word somehow explained everything. 

“Foggy?” 

“Thank you, for telling me. That you didn’t want to go and, uh. All the rest,” Foggy mumbles, somewhere slightly below Matt’s left ear. 

“Just telling the truth,” Matt replies easily and calmly – to tell the truth, he actually has trouble believing it _himself_ , the fact that he has just said _no_ , and he _could_ do that – well, no, it wasn’t _real_ freedom, far from it, but closer to it than he had ever been in over four years, and the feeling is incredible. Matt almost feels like floating, even when Foggy releases him and steps back a little. 

“So, uh, I should probably get going, then. You’ve got someplace else you wanted to go?” 

“Actually,” Matt says, “I’d like to stay home and study. I wasn’t lying about being a homebody.” 

“Nerd,” Foggy says, but it sounds fond, and Matt allows himself to briefly bask in that tone. “Alright. I’ll head out alone, then. Tell you about it when I get back?” 

“Sure,” Matt says, also smiling now, a part of him still amazed at what just happened. Foggy had been true to his word. This still isn’t freedom, he knows _that_ alright, but, it just might be a taste of what it feels like. 

(Foggy gets back later on, much sooner than Matt expected, and mumbles something about ‘you were right, the entertainment wasn’t much fun’, and leaves it at that. Matt isn’t completely useless at the pet thing and does manage to cheer Foggy up and talk him into watching a movie with him, which makes for a far more enjoyable end to their night. Matt also can feel himself falling asleep slowly against Foggy’s side while his owner is narrating, but, for once, feels utterly at ease doing so.) 

xxx 

(It’s also late at night, sometimes, during some of the rare occasions when Matt has fallen asleep leaning against him in a cab back from a night drinking, or dozed off with his head tilted back against Foggy’s thigh when Foggy has been sitting on one of their beds and Matt on the floor, papers spread out around both of them in a late night study session. Foggy can never help but put a hand in Matt’s hair on those occasions, if only for the incredible sensation of Matt always, always leaning _into_ it, sometimes even making a small, pleased noise in his sleep. 

‘ _Irritable, of low social intelligence, aggressive and mulish to the point of insensate’_ Matt’s ownership papers had said when he’d read them, once, half a year or so after moving in to Columbia when he’d found them again during cleaning. ‘ _Seems unable to feel gratitude or affection for his owner; high flight risk’._

Foggy runs a hand down Matt’s neck, feels the other man _shiver_ under his touch, and suppresses a disbelieving snort. 

Matt hasn’t tried to run away from him _once_. 

“And whoever called you insensate or unable to feel affection has been a _moron_ ,” Foggy mutters. When Matt is relaxed, he is the sweetest and most tactile guy he knows. Sometimes Foggy swallows, wondering whether years spent with a different, actually cruel owner might have eventually managed to mold Matt into that parody of himself he is described as on paper. Never let anyone hear his genuine laugh, his razor-sharp smile when he’s said something clever, his beautiful loose-limbed, utterly at ease body sprawled across a bed because he felt _safe_ there. 

“Yeah. Not gonna happen, buddy. Because that would be a crime,” Foggy whispers, and, even as he wonders why he’s telling Matt all of this while he is asleep, drops off himself. ) 

xxx 

Matt actually…seems to balance being a pretend free man and a slave fairly well. Foggy can see the little details of his behaviour that give him away – he tends to listen far more than speak himself, his fingers involuntarily trace the collar hidden beneath his shirt sometimes when the topic of slaves or slavery comes up, and despite being polite and charming and happy to chat when being chatted to, ultimately keeps more to himself than Foggy does. 

He also tenses up when someone other than Foggy gets a hold of him, but at the same time, always seems to _yield_ under Foggy’s touch, either a shoulder clap or an attention-grab at his arm, or a slap on his back, sometimes a hair-ruffle when they’ve got a movie night going on, a mixture between the submission of a pet and the relaxation of a friend. Matt also does his best to obey any ‘commands’ free people other than Foggy unknowingly give him, ranging from ‘hey, Murdock, pass me the salt’ to ‘Out of the way, asshole! Oh, uh, sorry, didn’t see the cane…’ without actually appearing to be anything other than someone polite and not interested in conflict. 

(Technically, nothing _should_ happen if Matt broke the law and disobeyed any orders, but they both know that in case it ever came out that Matt was a slave and people remembered he had deliberately ignored commands in the past, the punishments would be severe, and/or completely ruin Matt’s chances at emancipation, Foggy points out ruefully. Matt still doesn’t let himself think about that seriously.) 

But there’s also improvements in their relationship – Matt has stopped asking for permission for every single little thing he has asked permission for once before and received Foggy’s ‘It’s fine, Matt, as long as it isn’t harming anyone you can do whatever you want’ standard reply. 

Now he mainly just sometimes smiles at Foggy when he tells him ‘I’m heading out’ or ‘I was planning to get some coffee, would you like some?’ and it’s a smile that says ‘ _Thank you for letting me do this’_ but also ‘ _I trust you’_ , and Foggy feels both awkward and warm whenever he gets one. Matt _does_ ask him for permission to attend Spanish class next semester as his elective, but that’s about it, and Foggy agrees enthusiastically, happy to see Matt having interests of his own and venturing out more and more by himself. 

(Though he does point out that Punjabi is obviously the more versatile choice, and is delighted to receive a dig about the number of American Spanish speakers VS the relative usefulness of Punjabi only as a means to understand Bollywood movies, which are non-understandable anyway, even with working eyes, or so he’s been told. Foggy realizes that Matt _argues_ , and _disagrees with his opinion sometimes_ , and _still wants to be around Foggy_ , and this is sort of really amazing.) 

The final touch comes one night, when they’re sitting next to each other in a removed corner in the library, and Matt absent-mindedly says ‘Pass me the Braille edition for a moment’ before abruptly sucking a breath in, realizing that _he_ has just given _Foggy_ an order. 

“Uh, I’m sorry, I meant –” he swallows, hand briefly running over the lower edge of his collar, as if the remind himself that it’s still there. 

Foggy gently grasps his wrist. “Matt. It’s fine. Here,” he says, sliding the book toward him with the other hand. “And besides,” he can’t help adding, hoping that his slave hears the grin in his voice, “That order wasn’t _hard_ ,” he quotes Matt, and his friend stares in his direction for a moment, until they both burst out laughing and get promptly shushed from all sides. 

But other times, Foggy also sees the clenched fists at Matt’s sides when he has to deal with someone deliberately being a bag of dicks and has little to no means of actually calling them out on it, not without serious risk to himself. Foggy always feels bad about that, but there’s not much either of them can do about it – and he unfortunately doubts Matt would appreciate his owner fighting his battles for him, anyway. In fact, after a while Foggy suspects that even in a world where Matt _wasn’t_ completely dependent on him this wouldn’t be any different, so he doesn’t feel hurt about it – it’s just another aspect of Matt, something that is uniquely him, and something Foggy suspects he would never have gotten to see if he’d had Matt on his back and knees from the start. 

Sometimes, though, he really wishes Matt would ever consider doing something the easy way. 

xxx 

“Matt? Are you okay? Maybe if we talked to her, she’d let you do a different assignment.” 

“No. I should be able to do this. I _will_ be able to do this,” he says, stubbornly not turning away from his laptop, fingers running over the Braille display without, Foggy is fairly certain, actually taking anything in. Almost an entire six months have passed since Foggy told Matt that he wanted to free him, they have both passed their exams for the first semester with flying colours and, if anything, it has made Matt study that much harder. Foggy suspects he is in fact doing his job as a study aid fairly well, if only because he succeeds in making Foggy feel vaguely guilty every time he considers slacking off when Matt is still working. 

_You shouldn’t * have* to be able to this_ , is what Foggy wants to snap, but doesn’t. He knows that half a year ago, Matt likely would have turned around and asked him, softly, ‘Do you want me to do a different assignment?’ and then quietly gone along with whatever Foggy had suggested. _This is an improvement_ , Foggy tries to tell himself. This is the real Matt Murdock, and that’s who he (unfortunately) is completely smitten by. 

If only the real Matt Murdock didn’t come with a martyr complex the size of Switzerland. 

The final exam for the second semester of one of their classes is a debate, and the professor has assigned them their topics, their positions and their partners. 

Matt has been assigned the hypothetical defence of an owner who has severely abused and crippled his slave. 

(“And the biggest charge I’ll probably have to get him off on is ‘disturbance of the public peace’, because _he did it in a damn park_ ,” Matt had told Foggy through gritted teeth after extended prodding.) 

Now Matt finally takes a breath, and then turns toward Foggy. “Do you think…she knows?” he asks quietly. 

Foggy grimaces. “There is no logical reason why she should,” he says, and there isn’t. Generally, most professors have far too many students and are also far more interested in their research to ever bother to check whether they’re teaching exclusively free students or whether there are some slaves in the auditorium. From their perspective, it absolutely doesn’t matter for either the grading or the teaching, so there really wouldn’t be much point. In Law it would be especially strange to expect to encounter a slave, and Matt hasn’t done much to draw attention to himself, but shown himself to be an excellent student, spearheading their grade curve with a few other whiz kids. 

(When they were home over Thanksgiving and Christmas break, Foggy was able to tell his parents were actually quite impressed. His father, who had been the one rather questioning the sense of having a ‘slave as _a study aid_ , really, how is he even going to understand what is going on in class?!’ had actually cornered Matt a few times while he was doing chores, - which of course had been another topic of debate, running the usual ‘Matt, just because my mother told you to do this, it doesn’t mean you have to. I can always tell you to stop, if you want to’ – ‘No, thank you, Foggy, I’m fine, I like being useful’-course – asking him his opinion on various topics he read about, and then, apparently, been rather surprised by Matt’s concise, well-thought-out, level answers. Foggy had been pleased to note that this, coupled with Matt at least not being _visibly_ collared any more, and not looking quite as awkward about sitting at a table with them, had apparently caused his parents to treat him a little more like a…valued house-hold help at least, rather than a slave.) 

Now, Matt sighs. “For our classes next year…you were thinking of going more into criminal defence, weren’t you?” 

“Yeah.” Foggy nods. “But that doesn’t mean…” 

“Then it will be good practice,” Matt says, curtly, and that is the end of that. Foggy frowns, but recognizes when his advice isn’t wanted, and retreats to his half of the room to let Matt brood in peace. His slave’s fingers sound like they’re stabbing the keyboard when he writes, and if Foggy turns his head phones up, he almost doesn’t have to hear it. 

xxx 

“Ladies and Gentlemen,” Matt begins the very next day, “The reason the law exists - the foundation of our entire judicial system - is to keep American people safe. What happened in Central park on June 26 th – a slave, stealing food from a vendor, yes, even food that had fallen off the cart and been lying in the dirt, without its owner telling it to – is _the very opposite_ of that.” 

And then he seems to tremble just slightly, and briefly goes just a bit paler, but then takes a breath and steadies, and everything he says gets worse from there. 

Matt _obliterates_ his opponent. Foggy sits there, slightly open-mouthed, as Matt basically throws the entire slave owner’s manual at his debate partner, arguing how even the most horrid acts of the defendant should be seen as “necessary discipline, esteemed listeners, a slave is not capable of higher functions, the food it stole could have been money, or a gun, or even a _child_ , it simply covets the things it sees and therefore needs the punishment to teach it how to function” and how “it would have been a disservice to society at large if the owner Mr Robert had restrained himself and therefore allowed an unstable slave to get worse. In a public park, no less, where other pets could have seen it getting away with it. Not punishing such disobedience in public harshly is tantamount to spreading a _disease_ , your honour,” Matt’s voice cuts through the silence in the hall, sharp and clear. Everyone else is watching in rapt attention, too, and Foggy hears mutters of ‘damn, he’s right, I didn’t see it like this before,’ and ‘wow, I wonder whether he really hates slaves or something. He seems to know the problems they can cause pretty well.’ 

Down below, Matt is just about to finish up, grabbing the sheet of Braille paper he didn’t even use from the desk in front of him. He takes another breath. 

“Ladies and Gentlemen. The defence concedes that a gag would have been advisable to minimize the disturbance caused by the noise, but we will maintain that, by flaying off that slave’s back, Mr Robert was nothing more, and nothing less, but the model citizen we should all aspire to be.” 

He is met with roaring applause after he finishes. 

Next, however, to Foggy’s worry, Matt barely stays long enough to hear it, leaving as soon as the professor thanks them and asks them to step down. Matt nods, grabs his cane and notes and hurries up the stairs, past the people whispering, not even paying attention to the next two students taking their stands. Matt is out the door in a heart beat, his bag forgotten in his seat. Foggy stares for a moment longer, but then stumbles to his feet, grabs both their things and awkwardly squeezes past everyone else to get out of the room. 

“Matt!” 

Foggy is hurrying after him, not for the first time wondering how Matt can be that _fast_ for a blind guy, but the halls are already crowded and Matt is slipping from his sight fast. 

“Matt, wait!” 

Foggy is almost certain that Matt has heard him, but he doesn’t even slow down. Foggy’s stomach clenches in apprehension – Matt’s expression upon leaving the class had looked like _thunder_ – and that is the reason why he does what he does next. 

“Matt, _stop_! _That isn’t optional_!” 

Matt freezes. 

“Matt! Jesus, wait!” Foggy elbows his way through the bustle of students to reach the lone figure of his friend, standing still now, head bent. The posture lets Foggy feel guilty as hell, but also relieved that Matt still _listened_ to him. 

“Matt.” He says, intently, grabbing his arm as soon as he manages to catch up to him. Matt doesn’t actually raise his head. 

“Yes, sir?” he asks coldly. 

“Dude, don’t give me that,” Foggy retorts without missing a beat, hiding the way that address stung. “I don’t like pulling that card either, especially not with what you just went through, but you can’t just…storm out on me like that! I was _worried_.” 

Matt sighs, irritably. “There’s no reason for that. I wouldn’t do anything stupid to cause you trouble.” 

“Yeah, that’s not what I’m worried about, buddy,” Foggy says, wryly. “I’m worried about _you_. What you just had to plead for is something that would have made _me_ throw up on the podium. I think I’d need to go on a bender after, to try and wash the taste outta my mouth.” 

Matt looks a little bit thrown by the explanation, so Foggy uses the opportunity to transform the grip on Matt’s arm into a more soothing rub. 

“Yeah. Don’t just run out on me like that, okay? You _know_ you can do whatever you want. I just want to be sure you’re okay.” 

Matt sags a little, as if he’d been held up by string pulled taut until now, and Foggy’s words had just cut it. 

“I…I’m okay. I just didn’t want to be in the room any more.” 

“I think I got that, yeah. For what it’s worth, I think you at least aced that debate,” Foggy tries, giving a little huffed laugh because Matt can’t see his weary smile. “That’s gotta count for something, right?” 

“I guess,” Matt replies, breathing out a sigh and visibly forcing himself to relax. A humourless smile appears on his face when he adds, “And, well. After this, at least no one should suspect that in an actual trial like that, I’d be _evidence_ , not defence counsel.” 

“Not after we take the bar exam, you won’t be,” Foggy cuts him off, because he knows what Matt gets like whenever he starts reminding himself of what the world technically could be like for him. “You good now?” 

“Yeah. Will be, anyway,” Matt nods, tapping his cane against his shoes. “I think I’ll just head to the…gym again. To blow off some steam.” 

“Sure. See you when you get back,” Foggy says, clapping him on the shoulder before he leaves and sees one of Matt’s genuine, grateful smiles that he doesn’t press the matter further. 

xxx 

Matt returns much, much later that night to their dorm room and even though it’s dark, Foggy can see that both his hands are bleeding, knuckles burst open and raw. (He also finds out the next day that apparently during that night, Matt also sprained his wrist, lost his cane, somehow managed to get his shirt torn up and got a cut across his torso that he won’t tell Foggy where he got it from.) 

It dawns on Foggy that day that his slave might not have the best coping mechanisms when it comes to anger, but it will be years later that he remembers this, and then bangs his head against the wall. 

_To be continued..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There, I hope you enjoyed, thanks for all of the reviews, without which I may not have gotten the final push to complete this story for the second time :p Hope you like and if you read, please review! :D


	14. Where is Claire When You Need Her?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for a bit of a darker chapter, unfortunately. If that isn't your thing you can stop reading after the first 'xxx' and wait for a brief summary next chapter. I do promise that there's going to be better times ahead.^^°

**Chapter 14: Where’s Claire When You Need Her?**

It happens when they’re sitting in the library one day. Their third semester has started a week ago, and even though Matt remains (understandably) detached from most other students, generally making no impression on their classmates other than being a charmingly polite, hot, but otherwise completely unapproachable guy (and also the one person you do NOT want to face off against in debate…) Foggy has been busy making connections, facilitating their social life by getting invites to parties (some of which Matt even tags along to), and also always helpfully knowing someone who knows someone who has the answer to any of the myriad problems campus life comes with. In this case, Foggy has also managed to get them what he thinks is a somewhat motivated group of people (or at least people with consistently good grades) to prepare a presentation with, which happens to be one of the requirements for successful completion of one of their current classes. 

Matt “I can do this on my own” Murdock is not a fan of group work. (Foggy suspects that would be the case even if he wasn’t trying to hide his legal status from 3 other kids they’re now going to have to closely work with for the next few weeks.)

But right now, he and Foggy are heading toward the group work room they’ve booked, Matt on Foggy’s arm trailing him through the busier parts of the library they usually avoid. Foggy is not keeping up his habitual running commentary on their environs which he hopes Matt will assume is due to this being, well, a _library_ , and the people running this place probably wouldn’t even care whether they’re free men or slaves, but behead them both for talking. 

It’s actually mostly due to the fact that Foggy doesn’t want to describe the dick with the study aid slave next to his deck, who he has cowering on the floor and is using their back as an additional surface to stack books on. 

“Foggy? Something wrong?” 

Matt murmurs it into his ear so quietly, but Foggy still almost jumps. Sometimes he thinks it’s uncanny how well Matt can tell something’s off. 

He sighs. No point in lying about it. 

“There’s…some of the people here have slaves with them.”

“So do you.” 

Matt’s low, murmured answer sounds almost amused, so Foggy hates that he has to make that slight smile disappear. 

“Yeah. But you’re not prostrate next to my chair while being used as a book desk.” 

“Oh.” Matt’s expression turns slightly harder. “Right.” 

“Let’s get this over with. Chair’s at your 10 o’ clock.”

“Thanks.” Foggy pulls the door to their booked room open and Matt releases his arm to wander over and settle into a seat at the group table inside, starting to pull out his laptop and set it up. They sit in silence for a while as they gather their materials, and Foggy just catches a slight tilting of Matt’s head before the first two members of their group, Kevin and Danny, file inside. 

“Hey,” Danny says, nodding to both of them before sitting down as well. Foggy is just about to return the greeting when there’s someone else trailing in behind them, but it’s not their fifth group member, Trish, but…

“Oh yeah,” Kevin says, “That’s Em.”

“Uh,” Foggy says, and feels the ground underneath him sway slightly sideways. ‘Em’ is a red-haired girl in…well, less clothing than what is optimal. The only thing really properly covered is her neck in a broad, tight-looking, leather and metal choker. 

She is also shaking in her non-existent boots and next to him, Matt has tensed up like a bow string. 

“Hot, right?” Kevin asks and Foggy wants to fire the script writer of his life. “Just got her last week. She’s helping me _study_.” He slaps her behind as he says it and she doesn’t even flinch. (Matt does.) Danny is rolling his eyes like he’s had to deal with this behavior for a week already, but Kevin doesn’t seem to notice. “Kneel down next to that chair. Take notes,” he says instead to Em, who does so, settling a writing pad on her knees and trying to steady a chewed-on pen in her trembling right hand. 

“So, any of you have looked at the stuff yet, or-?” 

“Hold on,” Foggy says, interrupting Kevin’s question, swallowing, “shouldn’t…shouldn’t you get her some more appropriate clothes before we start this?”

“What? Why?” Kevin frowns at him. “I like the view.” 

“Because it’s the _library_ ,” Foggy says, deliberately trying to keep calm while he can see how next to him, Matt’s fingers holding his Braille pad have gone white, “and in here it’s fucking _freezing_.” 

“So what?” Kevin gives him an irritated glare. “Makes her perky. Could we get started on the project now?” 

“She’s a _person_ ,” Foggy scathes, ignoring Matt’s muttered comment of ‘Foggy-‘, also ignoring Danny looking uncomfortable at the whole thing and also Trish, only arriving now and looking perplexed at the spectacle. 

“Uh, hey guys, what’s…?” 

“She’s a _slave_ ,” Kevin cuts across Foggy, “You’re friends with Murdock, aren’t you? Weren’t you listening to his speech at the exam last semester? That man has the right idea, ey, Murdock?” 

_NO_ , Foggy wants to yell out, both as a warning and a furious denial, but before he can do so, Kevin’s ‘friendly’ slap has already landed firmly on Matt’s back, the sound of the flat hand hitting the body of his best friend sounding to Foggy’s ears exactly like the slap on Em’s behind. For a moment, he thinks he can see Matt looking absolutely _murderous_ with a ferocity that scares him, but within fractions of a second that impression’s gone, and Matt only makes a shocked noise, dropping the Braille pad with a fumbled clatter. 

“Oh. Sor- _ry_ , didn’t mean to startle you.”

“It’s…fine,” Matt manages, and Foggy thinks he might be the only one who can hear the fury underneath those words. Matt has always been excellent at hiding anything he doesn’t want to show (and Foggy hates to wonder what times in his life may have caused him to develop those skills) but he also secretly feels a bit of pride at the fact that he is starting to get better and better at telling what is really going on behind the façade. “We should get to work,” Matt continues and that seems to be it – only he then pauses and adds, seemingly casual, “But you should let her get a blanket. It’s nasty having a slave around who’s sick.” 

There is something disdainful in his voice, but Foggy doesn’t think Kevin catches that it isn’t aimed at Em. 

“Hm. You think so? Fine,” he sighs, before snipping his fingers. “You. Go and get a sodding blanket from the room or whatever. Better get your ass back here quick if you don’t want me to heat it up by beating it.” He gives a brief snort as the girl only nods once and then gets up to quickly leave the room, her expression a cross between fear, but also a hint of relief. 

“Happy now?” Kevin gives Foggy a look like an exasperated charity worker and starts getting his own things out. “Seriously, I’m not the devil incarnate for deciding to get one. A few people have them and they do save you a lot of work.” He raises an eye brow. “Ever even considered getting one for yourself?” 

“I do prefer doing my own work, thank you,” Foggy replies, evenly and ignores Kevin’s eye roll. Trish is already looking as uncomfortable as possible with the whole scene, Danny mainly looks annoyed and Matt has a face which Foggy would under any other circumstances consider that of a man calculating where he can get rid of a body, so he sighs and settles in for the group project from hell. 

At least Em is not going to be actively freezing while they work, so that’s something, right? 

(This night, Matt also comes back late. This time, he also looks worse, and it is the expression on his face that stops Foggy from asking him what exactly happened, again. He doesn’t want to, but he is _still_ trying to figure out where Matt’s freedom or Matt’s health should take precedence, and it’s driving him up the wall. 

It is the letter that arrives the next day that forces his hand and makes the confrontation inevitable.) 

xxx

“I don’t want to.”

“And that would be a factor in this whole thing if either of us could _do_ something about this, which we can’t. I’m sorry, Matt,” Foggy says, calmly (they have gone over this a _lot_ ), while continuing to look up clinics in the vicinity that admit both slaves and free people. The letter that prompted this entire conversation they’ve been having on and off for two days now – ever since the second morning after Matt got back with busted hands and _another_ cut, actually – lies far too innocently next to Foggy on the desk. 

‘Dear Mr. Nelson, we have yet failed to receive a notification of a conducted medical annual preventive health exam on your purchased slave, 10-4-1964, despite him being in your possession for a period extending twelve months. Please present the necessary documents as soon as possible to prevent the assignment of a fine.’ 

That, or something along those lines, had been the gist of the content. 

Easy enough, right? 

Apparently not when your purchased slave, 10-4-1964, also answered to the name of Matt Murdock. 

“Foggy, I _hate_ hospitals.” 

Foggy sighs. “I know, Matt. You realize no-one actually _likes_ them, right?” 

“You don’t _really_ have to take me to a check-up. Most people just make a phone call to a vet, say their pet is healthy and get a form letter sent that the check-up has been completed without anyone ever seeing a doctor at all. I’m pretty sure Kevin does that with Em.” 

“I know, and I don’t approve. As soon as I’m certified, I want to stop shit exactly like that from happening. Everyone deserves access to health care, Matt.” 

“Deserves, yes. Needs, no.” 

“Yeah, because you’re Superman and you don’t get sick ever, right,” Foggy says, and rolls his eyes even though he knows the gesture is wasted on his roommate. 

“I’m not Superman,” Matt mumbles petulantly, but there’s also a bitter edge to it as a hand of his is reaching into the front of the shirt, fingering the collar Foggy knows is there. 

“Which is why you’ll have to go and get your annual check-up, yes. I’m pretty sure that cut you got from god knows where looks infected, too.”

“It’s not.” 

Foggy silently counts to ten in Punjabi and debates biting into his laptop. 

“You don’t know that,” he says instead. “It could be rainbow-coloured by now and you wouldn’t know it. How did you even manage to get yourself cut up that badly for the second time?” 

Matt doesn’t reply to that, just continues sitting as coiled irritation on the edge of his bed. Foggy frowns. He doesn’t know what the big deal is, really – sure, Matt always balks at things where he has to wear his old, visible metal collar, understandably so – but usually he’s never this bad about it. 

“Matt. Please.”

Matt lifts his head. “You said you wouldn’t force me to do anything I didn’t want to,” he says quietly.

“I know. And I really don’t want to do this, either, believe me. But after it hasn’t gotten better for two days I do think you need to get that cut looked at.,” Foggy says and it’s not a lie – even if there’s still a flash of guilt whenever he realizes that a part of him also feels _relieved_ that he can tell himself the law is forcing him to do this. He clings to the notion that at least his _motive_ is that he only wants his friend healthy and safe. 

Matt only presses his lips together at that, so Foggy crosses the room, sits down next to him. This is probably the first major disagreement they have ever had and Foggy can feel the tension in the room, and Matt’s unease at being treated like this after almost a year of pseudo-freedom, and he hates it. He takes a breath. 

“Matt. Even if you were free, you realize I would nag you as your _friend_ until you went? I’d probably hold your torts textbook hostage or something. You not having a choice here has nothing to do with _that_ ,” Foggy says, gently tapping the leather band around Matt’s neck, “and everything to do with _this_.” And, despite it being cheesy, he takes Matt’s hand and presses his friend’s index finger against his own chest. 

(He tries to tell himself Matt is the only one who needs convincing of that.) 

At that, Matt finally swallows, and raises his head. He seems to look up at Foggy crouching next to him, studies him as if he was trying to discern something in Foggy’s face – and then apparently somehow finds something that satisfies him, because he drops his head back down, lower than before, effectively presenting his bare neck to Foggy and groans. 

“Fine. Put me in the damn collar.” 

Foggy breathes out a sigh of relief. He is so glad Matt relented. That he didn’t have to actually force him. (He honestly doesn’t know whether he would have or not, and it makes him feel either sick or scared if he thinks too long about it.) 

Forcing a smile on his face instead, he claps Matt on the shoulder. “Yeah, later. I got us an appointment at a clinic that admits both slaves and free people, so I recommend you only change into that thing when we’re actually there. Nothing suspicious about me guiding you, my very free and very blind roommate into the building, right?” 

And even though Matt still doesn’t look very happy about the appointment, he still smiles at that, and Foggy feels at least a little good about this.

Xxx

That feeling lasts about two minutes once they actually enter the clinic. 

“I won’t be able to talk when we’re in there,” Matt tells him, before, when they’re putting their jackets on in their dorm. Matt has changed his clothes, exchanged the smart, well-fitting black jeans, leather shoes and belt, undershirt and dress shirt for a pair of loose, belt-less sweat pants, bare feet in trainers and a zip-up hoodie. (“They like us to wear things that are easy to take off,” he had said, grimly, when putting them on. _They_ , Foggy had thought. _Free people_.) “Slaves have zero agency when it comes to our medical treatment, so the doctor will only be talking and listening to you. You’ll get to decide which procedures are performed on me,” he says, and tilts his face slightly away. “Of course, it’s your right as my owner, but…” he seems to grit his teeth. “Can you ask them not to restrain me on the table? I don’t…I don’t deal too well with that.” 

“They….they do what?” Foggy asks weakly, because that wasn’t something he had been expecting. The wonderful world of slavery apparently continues to yield new and horrific surprises that make you want to cry, like some kind of horrible onion jamboree bag.

Matt shrugs. “They don’t want to have to deal with scared slaves struggling, or having panic attacks or resisting treatment. Which is strangely what happens quite frequently when no one bothers to explain to us what is going to happen, or where. Hence, usually they tie you down.” 

“That’s…fucked up.” Foggy swallows. 

“ _You_ wanted this appointment,” Matt points out, slightly peeved, which at least reassures Foggy that Matt is still somewhat okay, if he feels like back-talking. His slave takes a breath, becoming more sombre again. “So…could you stop them from restraining me? I promise I won’t struggle if they don’t.” 

“I…oh god, yes, of course,” Foggy stammers. “I wouldn’t ever…this isn’t right, Jesus.” He rubs his forehead, sounding weary. “Anything else you don’t want them to do that I wouldn’t know about?”

It turns out, Matt doesn’t want to be sedated, doesn’t want to be gagged, and does not do well with people sticking things into his ears. “I also…um.” Now he swallows and apparently can’t even turn his face into Foggy’s direction. “I also would prefer not to be…tested, for _performance_ ,” Matt says through gritted teeth. It takes Foggy a moment to catch the meaning here, but when he does, he nods frantically, then tells Matt he just nodded frantically, and then proceeds to promise vast amounts of alcohol for both of them when this is over. 

(“And…” and now Matt takes a deep breath, while his knuckles go almost white on his cane. “Foggy, if you’re not…using me, it’s alright if I don’t receive a,” he hesitates only briefly, “sphincter reflex test or an enema, isn’t it? They like to offer it as a complimentary service.”

“A wha-…yes. Oh god, _yes_ , Matt,” Foggy replies, halfway praying that this is only Matt’s last attempt to convince him to not go there, rather than the truth of what standard procedures are like.) 

xxx

When they check in at reception, Foggy can feel Matt’s fingers tighten on his arm as they take his cane away, but he doesn’t protest. By now Foggy is starting to get a _really_ bad feeling about this, but doesn’t yet say anything when they are both led into an examination room. 

The nurses who come to check on them first aren’t cruel, but they also clearly don’t view the slaves as people. As soon as they enter the examination room, Matt is ordered to strip off his clothing, without even being given a smock or a little changing room like Foggy remembers from his own doctor’s visits. And he can see Matt tries not to show his unease, tries to strip as mechanically and unhesitatingly as most slaves do, but he can’t quite manage it, the hint of embarrassment and reluctance is there. Foggy swallows, turning his face away even though he knows Matt can’t see it, and wishes the nurses would, too. _This is your fault_ , a voice in his head whispers, _you let him get used to be treated decently, and now you’re throwing him right back to the wolves_. _This is called being cruel, Nelson_ , it says, and Foggy wishes he knew what the right thing to do even is any more. 

As soon as Matt’s naked, a nurse unceremoniously grabs his arm and he flinches, stumbling onto the scales she drags him onto. Foggy wants to look away. 

Matt wearing his impenetrable, red-tinted sunglasses, in sleekly-cut, dark clothing, a razor-sharp smile on his face when he’s killing someone in a debate, is such a jarring contrast to Matt now, naked, bruised, shoved under unforgiving neon light, and stumbling when nobody bothers to warn him about things on the floor, that Foggy hates himself, because he’s pretty sure Matt wouldn’t ever have wanted anyone to see him like this. 

“Um,” he says, not quite either addressing Matt or the nurse, “Y’know, maybe I should just wait-“ 

And Matt’s head flies around, even as he is manhandled onto the scale, and he seems to shake his head urgently in Foggy’s direction. _No_ , he mouthes. 

“- _or_ maybe I’ll stay? If that’s okay?” Foggy asks, befuddled and feeling like he’s floundering. “You can do whatever you wish, sir,” the nurse replies as she positions Matt on the scale and notes down his weight. 

“Alright. I’ll…I’ll just sit down here, then.” Foggy swallows and moves over to the chair he has put Matt’s clothes on after they hadn’t offered to take them and apparently expected him to just drop them on the floor. Matt gives him the tiniest nod, before he is already taken off the scale again, and the note-taking continues. 

Matt is also measured, has his temperature taken (“Maybe he shivers because _he isn’t wearing anything_ , not because he has a _fever_ ,” Foggy scathes, as one of the nurses comments on Matt shuddering from time to time, but is largely ignored. Matt does turn his head and give him a slight, tightly-wound smile as the nurse is not paying any attention to him while taking his blood pressure, which Foggy supposes is better than nothing.) Before they proceed to call in the doctor, they do actually ask Foggy whether Matt needs to be buckled down or whether he is ‘well-behaved’ enough, and it’s all Foggy can do to not snap at them that Matt isn’t an _animal_ , and suggesting that the doctor is the one in need to get his head examined. 

“No,” he says instead, hollowly. “No, he can follow orders just fine.” 

“Rough punishment?” is the first thing the doctor says in lieu of greeting when he enters and sees a bared Matt and the collection of bruises as well as the cut he sports. 

“Uh…kind of? Some of it was an accident,” Foggy stumbles through a half-lie. Matt hadn’t wanted to tell him the truth – according to him, he ‘fell and landed in glass shards’, which would have sounded like the biggest cop-out if Foggy had tried to tell that a medical professional. The doctor gives him a look that is not at all impressed. 

“Perhaps you should read up on proper punishment techniques,” the doctor – a middle-aged, dark-haired, slim man with an air of indifference and too little sleep – says, as he bends close to examine the wound, Matt barely keeping from flinching as he prods at it without announcement. “That cut is infected and the bruises aren’t far from actually vital organs.” 

“Oh. Right,” Foggy swallows. Next to him, Matt looks guilty and embarrassed, which obliterates any desire Foggy had to serve him a giant ‘I Told You So’-sundae, with a self-satisfaction cherry on top the minute they’re alone again. Instead, he tries to reach out a hand to pat him on the upper arm. “I’m sorry. I really want him to be healthy.” 

Again, the doctor looks at him a little disparagingly, but then shakes his head. 

“Very well,” he says instead, “in that case, get him to sit down on that table. Does he need a gag, or a muzzle?” 

“No. No, he doesn’t,” Foggy replies flatly, trying for Matt’s sake to remain calm. The little flash of relief on Matt’s face as Foggy grants him his requests of not having to be restrained almost makes Foggy’s stomach turn over. 

Still, he can’t help but feel a little better when he sees how Matt looks now compared to when he saw him naked for the last time. The old wounds, at least, have faded to faint scars, and his slightly-too-thin frame has filled out with what is definitely muscle. The work-out sessions at the gym and the college meal plan seem to be having an effect. 

But seeing Matt now, sitting miserably and exposed on the table, startling whenever the doctor handles him unannounced, to survey his glands, to check for melanoma, ingrown nails and open sores anywhere, makes him open his mouth to look at his throat, gums and teeth, draws blood to check for infections and grabs his hair to test its thickness before pressing a not-warmed up stethoscope against his chest, Foggy wants to take both Matt’s previous owners, as well as careless doctors, and throw them all out the window. 

Instead, all he can do is look away and hold Matt’s hand as they inform him that a mandatory check for STDs is up next and Matt tries to stop himself from cringing away as they insert the cotton swab inside his urethral canal, head tilted toward the ceiling and eyes suspiciously glistening. They assure Foggy, whose emotions have to be showing on his face, that the procedure is painless, though Foggy is pretty sure Matt’s reaction has little to do with physical pain and more with something that goes much deeper. Foggy has to control himself not to throw up, but Matt _has_ asked him to stay, keeps squeezing his hand through the procedure, so he stays. 

When the nurse handling Matt goes “Aw, what a good boy you have here. Usually they panic so much we have to tie them down, but yours is exceptionally obedient. You’ve trained him well,’ patting Matt’s hip as she pulls the cotton tip out of Matt again, Foggy has to stop himself from murdering everyone within twenty yards. 

Instead he just whispers ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,’ over and over again in between procedures and Matt only once turns and gives him a strange look in between the helpless and the grateful. At least they do stitch, dress and disinfect his wounds, at which Matt worryingly flinches as little as the night Foggy got him. 

“Alright. According to this, your slave seems healthy so far, though I will have to prescribe a course of antibiotics for the infection,” the doctor briefly glances at the notepad in his hand, not really looking at either of them. “Has he been used for sex, in the last two years?” 

“Ergh,” Foggy replies, eloquently, then “Yes,” at Matt’s tiniest, near imperceptible nod. Matt was so right, this was a terrible idea and Foggy will never insist on doing this again. “But I don’t, uh, need him… _cleaned,_ or anything. Anywhere,” he fumbles to add, almost feeling sick himself. 

“Very well,” The doctor makes a note on his sheet. “In either case, he’s due two vaccination refreshers, too – might as well get that over with as we finish up. You can already go down to reception to pick up your paperwork. Just make sure to look up proper punishment techniques before you apply corrective measures the next time.” Now he does glance up at Foggy, and his entire tone seems to be a variation of ‘So you don’t take up my valuable time because you fucked up your pet again’. 

“Uh,” Foggy says, trying not to sound too hopeful. “So we’re done?” 

“Mostly,” the doctor says, already pulling out a syringe and filling it with what is presumably the vaccine he talked about. “Get him to stand up and bend over the table, and you can leave.” 

“Um,” Foggy swallows as he shuffles closer to Matt’s side while the nurse is getting out what looks like antiseptic wipes and a syringe “Do you want me to…?” 

“You can leave,” Matt’s reply is murmured even more quietly than Foggy’s question was, both them feeling awkward as always when made aware of how unorthodox their relationship is. Matt is sliding off the table now, standing close to Foggy’s side, head bowed in what could be submission, but Foggy suspects is more like awful embarrassment. “I’ll…I’ll be fine. You don’t have to watch this, too. I can tell this is distressing for you.” 

“I’ll do what you want me to,” Foggy says, feeling terribly unsure of whether Matt would like him gone to preserve a last shred of his dignity after all or would like him to stay to feel safer. Matt being, well, _Matt_ , Foggy suspects the former but he can’t shake a lasting, gnawing feeling. 

“We _are_ almost done, yeah?” He asks the doctor again. “Just this left?” 

“Hm? Yes, yes,” the doctor replies, more focused on making sure no air is left in the syringe than actually looking terribly interested in Foggy or Matt. Foggy suspects slave doctors hardly get selected for their bedside manner or ethical standards. 

“It’s okay,” Matt tells him quietly. “Go. They’ll give me my clothes and cane back after and I’ll come find you.” 

_I’ll come find you._ For some reason, Foggy can feel his throat constricting as if he were being garrotted. 

“All…Alright, then.” Foggy swallows to get rid of the feeling, ineffectually. “Sorry,” he whispers, just for Matt’s ears, as he gives him a last squeeze of his biceps, Matt already leaning forward on the examination table, head bowed. He gives a fierce little nod and Foggy leaves as the doctor approaches with the wipes in one latex-gloved hand, loaded syringe in the other. Foggy closes the door audibly so Matt knows he is at least spared the audience of the one person who views him as a human being. 

Foggy firmly resolves to take Matt out for seriously fancy food after they get out of here, and maybe buy him a _very_ soft cushion to sit on. 

“Hello. My name is Nelson. I’m here to pick up the general letter of health and an antibiotics prescription for my slave, 10-4-1964…?” Foggy approaches the receptionist, the one person in this building who actually smiles at him, still feeling weird whenever he calls Matt by his system number rather than the name he now knows is what he actually considers his own. 

“Ah, yes, of course. Just one moment while I print it out for you…” the young blonde woman gives him a smile and proceeds to click away at her computer, while Foggy tries not to let his gaze wander around too much the reception area and waiting rooms. There is a mixed clientele of free people by themselves (and a kid with their parent) and other owners with their pets, all of whom look exactly as miserable as Matt, some of them downright terrified. Foggy suspects that this is what it would look like if the waiting room at a vet’s office was populated by people instead of animals and kind of hates himself for that thought. Some of the slaves get to sit on chairs like Matt did, though, and Foggy vainly hopes that this means their owners treat them at least halfway decently. God, he can’t wait to a) free Matt and b) become a lawyer so he can work against shit like this. 

“Um. Sorry. Printer problems,” the receptionist interrupts his thoughts and shoots him an apologetic expression as she starts to wrestle with the electronic equipment. “Shouldn’t take more than a minute, hopefully.” 

“Sure,” Foggy says, now a bit absent-minded himself as he starts getting antsy when he realizes that some minutes have passed already. Shouldn’t Matt have come out by now? How long can two vaccinations take?”

_“What? But F- Mr. Nelson said –“_

Foggy’s ears strain as he thinks he might just have heard what sounded like Matt’s voice behind the door - but that doesn’t make any sense, Matt _had_ said he wouldn’t be allowed to talk in here. Foggy frowns, not able to catch anything else, attention half divided between the whimpers from the waiting room, the quiet (but inventive) cursing from the receptionist and wondering whether his imagination just played a trick on him or not. 

_“No. No, please –“_

_“ – standard procedure. Nurse, get –“_

Now that was _definitely_ the doctor’s voice, though, and it sounded annoyed. Foggy straightens himself immediately, all of his attention focused on the closed examination room door, heart beginning to pound. Should he…? 

_“- making this difficult. Slaves as responsive as this one-“_

\- is the next thing Foggy hears, the doctor’s voice again, but then, _then_ , there’s a _cry_ from Matt, something terrible that sound like anger, anguish and something _worse_ mixed in, and before the receptionist can even say anything, he’s already past the counter and comes crashing back into the practice. 

“Right, get ready to note the – what-?” the doctor’s head turns, just as Foggy bursts into the room again, and freezes – mostly because Matt is currently bent nearly flat over the table, shaking, his hands clawing into the material as the doctor’s fingers have worked him wide open and proceed to push deeper inside. 

“No. Please don’t make me-!” Matt cries out again, just before his body convulses against the table helplessly in an unmistakeable manner, and his flushed face is so full of helplessness and rage and _shame_ , head turned around to not-see Foggy, that Foggy feels something strange and new and _sharp_ come over him, and he walks right up and backhands the doctor straight across the face. 

_To be continued..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, the chapters are coming slow, but they're coming. Hope you liked, would love to hear your thoughts and if you read, please review! :D


	15. Resurrection For A Dream

**Chapter Fifteen: Resurrection for a Dream**

“That, um. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a slave owner doing something like that before.” 

“Oh god. Don’t remind me,” Foggy has his face buried in his hands. “I’m in so much trouble.”

Foggy is also currently sitting bent almost double on the edge of his dorm room bed after a _very_ long Saturday. A Saturday that involved his best friend getting raped, the cops getting called on _Foggy_ , a trip to the police station where there had been a _lot_ of questions, and now it’s so, so late at night and he’s so tired. But at least they’re both home safe. For now. 

(It happened so fast. Foggy remembers only patches now, how he briefly only saw red, and had backhanded the Doctor, he remembers _that_ clearly, and then he thinks the guy might have fallen backwards and Foggy had followed, had been about to jump on him, and he remembers how he had drawn back his fist, intending to punch him again, and again and again in his _face_ , and the nurse had screamed and then Matt had _moved_ , Foggy thinks, and suddenly Foggy had _also_ been on the floor, Matt above him, asking, ‘Foggy? Foggy, is that you? Did you stumble and fall? What is happening?’ loudly and waving his hand through the air as if trying to find him. The doctor had been sprawled there, staring at Foggy still in shock, holding his cheek and gaping, and then security had rushed in, and events became even more blurred. Foggy does remember holding on to Matt so tightly, though, that at least nobody took him away from him on the way to the station when the police came, and he remembers yelling at people until they allowed Matt to put his clothes back on.) 

Matt now is sitting across from him, again dressed in the soft, thin sweats he prefers for nights spent in, and, by comparison, looks almost more put-together than Foggy, despite the events earlier today and that he had to spent hours kneeling on the floor in a police station afterwards. (Foggy is kind of glad it at least wasn’t the police station Brett is working at). 

“I,” Matt swallows. “Thank you, Foggy.” 

“You…you don’t have to thank me,” Foggy manages, although a part of him notes that Matt, despite everything seems somehow more… _relaxed_ now than perhaps ever before. Foggy clears his throat, feeling a bit awkward.

“That wasn’t…that wasn’t right, what that doctor douche was doing. I mean, I don’t like violence, honestly.” He can feel his eyes narrowing. “But I think I’d punch him again, anyway.” 

(At this, Matt gives him a smile that almost seems a little bit too _sharp_ for a grateful pet, but again, Foggy only remembers this much, much later.) 

Aloud, Matt says, “Well, technically, it was only the standard stim test. It’s usually routinely performed when owners even bother to bring their pets in – in fact, it’s most likely the only reason anyone ever _would_ bring their slave in for a routine check-up, if you listened to slave merchants,” Matt says dryly. “Results of that performance test greatly affect our resale value.” 

“Yay for humanity,” Foggy mutters, raising his beer. Alcohol had been declared to be in order, no matter the late hour. He is a few more in than Matt at this point, but honestly, who’s counting anymore? “For the record, I am so, _so_ sorry I took you there.” 

(And he would be more sorry. He would be sorry enough to kill himself, if what he had done would be enough to get Matt taken away from him, permanently, but from what he now knows of slavery law – and he knows so, so *much* of slavery law – he doesn’t think so. _Matt_ isn’t the one who has broken the law here. _In fact, anyone who met Matt would think the entire idea laughable,_ Foggy tries to tell himself.) 

“I’m…going to be okay, I think,” Matt gives him a lop-sided smile that at least doesn’t look like a complete lie. “It’s…nothing I wasn’t used to,” he swallows, “it just…it had been a while. And I had genuinely been hoping to avoid it this time.” 

_Avoid what? Being finger-fucked specifically or being raped in general?_ Foggy wants to ask and can feel his stomach turn. Instead he hears himself say, 

“Well, for the record, I’m all for you getting used to that _not_ happening again,” Foggy says, throat a bit constricted. “Unless you want to. With a partner of your choice. Uh. And not an asshole in white who probably won his medical licence in a game of Operation. Actually, I’m thinking when we’re lawyers we can go on and try to sue him…y’know, after he’s done suing _me_ ,” he adds glumly. 

(And oh god, his bio-mom is going to _kill_ him when she hears this. He empties the last of his bottle at this wonderful thought.) 

Matt, despite their situation, laughs a little, and Foggy thinks it’s the most relieving sound he’s heard since this horrible afternoon. “Sounds great. Although…” he cocks his head. “Weren’t we gonna go for defence?” 

“Oh! Yeah!” Foggy (who thinks at this point that the alcohol might actually _finally_ be working) snips his fingers. “Defence! Right. ‘cause there’s money in that.” 

Matt (who seems more than eager to change the topic as well), cocks an eye brow, a snort escaping him. “What, _now_ suddenly money is more important than justice?” 

“Noooo. No, no, no,” Foggy protests. “We’re so gonna stand for truth and justice and all that. Right. Just as soon as we’ve worked our way up and made partners somewhere, totally.” 

“Hmm,” Matt humms a little, laugh fading into something softer, and almost a little…nervous? He fiddles with his beer bottle, turning his head slightly away from Foggy as he licks his lips. “You know…actually…”

“Hm? What?” Foggy blinks, for a moment feeling a slight uptick in his heart beat. Matt looks slightly tense and almost embarrassed, in a way he hasn’t for a long time.

“I...” Matt swallows. “Back when I was…a kid. I always wanted to be a lawyer.” 

Foggy abruptly feels a lot more sober. Matt hasn’t yet shared much of his past at all with him, all Foggy knew so far was that he was an orphan, raised in St Agnes until the day he turned eighteen, and was then sold off to cover the cost of his stay there after nobody wanted to pay to have him adopted before he became an adult. It’s the reason why Matt had both the educational background to be a useful house slave as well as get an undergrad degree – state wards usually receive both the education needed to become free citizens in case they do get adopted, as well as the training necessary to be a working slave in case they don’t. Foggy has tried and failed to avoid imagining what it would have to have been like when that metal collar closed around your neck the day you became eighteen. 

“Oh, really?” he tries now, because he can sense this must be kind of big for Matt. After all, a slave telling their owner about their childhood dreams for their future…it’s obvious to how much hurt and ridicule Matt could be opening himself up here. What kind of weapons he is giving Foggy by even sharing this much. 

“Yes,” Matt nods, now, more firmly than before. “My dad, when he was still alive, he…” he almost seems to stop, there but then appears to steel himself and press on regardless. “I promised him I’d make him proud. Someday. That I’d…I’d own my own legal firm. To fight for those nobody else will fight for.” Foggy stares at Matt, still, as his slave adds a humourless huff to his words. “Well. I don’t think that turned out quite like anybody hoped for. Don’t even own myself these days, never mind a firm.” 

“Matt…” Foggy’s voice is hoarse, and Matt almost flinches at his name, turning his face firmly toward the floor. 

“No, don’t…I’m sorry, I have everything I could ask for, Foggy. Really. That was out of line. I’m sorry.”

“Matt, no.” Foggy abruptly leans forward, grasping Matt’s wrist before his slave, now obviously thoroughly uncomfortable and embarrassed, having stripped himself bare figuratively after the doctor today did so literally, can turn away and potentially burrow himself into his blankets with his face against the wall. Matt freezes in his grip, like he did the first time Foggy grabbed him, and Foggy sighs, relenting a little, and letting his thumb massage some circles into the inside of Matt’s wrist. It does seem to relax him a little, or at least, stop him from pulling away even more. 

“Matt,” Foggy says again, more firmly.

Matt huffs, shifting awkwardly. “Yes, Foggy. I’m fine. It was just…a long day. Never mind,” he tries a small, hopeful smile. “Let’s go to sleep so we can become rich, successful lawyers faster?” 

“Sure,” Foggy says, tone casual. “Just tell me one thing.” 

“Always,” Matt replies softly. 

“Do you still dream of your own law practice?” 

( _Slaves don’t have dreams_ , the manual says. _Slaves only wish for the immediate comfort and reassurance of their master’s approval_.) 

“ _Yes_ ,” says Matt, and even though he almost looks like he expects Foggy to hit him for it, his voice sounds utterly assured. 

“Alright, then,” Foggy says, utterly serious, “Our sign will say, ‘Murdock and Nelson, Free Avocados at Law’.” 

Again, Matt stares at him, blindly, for one or two heart beats, and then he starts laughing, going ‘It’s not _avocados_ , Foggy, it’s _abogados’_ and ‘I have heard all of your puns, and this one’s the worst’, and, finally, ‘and besides, it should be ‘Nelson and Murdock’ which sounds better - you can trust me, there’s this guy who told me blind people have spectacular hearing’. 

And Foggy grins, and clinks his half-empty beer against Matt’s, and he tells him about what it was like to be a chubby, poor kid at school who was only really good at debate team and music, and how his mom had wanted him to be a butcher. _Matt_ tells him about one last fight he heard, and that mixture of pride and loss, and they do end up on the floor in front of the same bed somehow, more drunk and leaning against each other for support, swapping stories and laughing (at Foggy’s, anyway, but also at some of Matt’s). And then, when the night is turning to a close, and Matt (the lightweight) is definitely about to be out of it soonish, he lets his head slump against Foggy’s shoulder and chest, murmuring ‘Nelson and Murdock. Sounds good, Foggy’, before losing consciousness and ending up in his owner’s lap entirely. 

Foggy groans, and huffs, attempting to wrestle them into a position at least marginally suited for sleeping, and, even though Matt might have been just a liiiiittle bit drunk as he said it, Foggy couldn’t help but notice that for the first time it sounded like he genuinely believed Foggy would actually free him. 

Somehow, this means that even the day at court and likely fine for assault that Foggy knows is coming his way doesn’t seem so bad anymore.

Xxx

It’s about a week after their visit at the clinic when _Foggy_ gets sick.

“Matt. You don’t have to do this.” 

Matt, in between heating water for a new hot water bottle, cooking chicken soup, figuring out the Braille on the lozenges and pain killers he got from the campus drug store, and apparently trying to brew three different head cold teas for Foggy at once, shoots him a consternated expression. “You _do_ know that this is what I’m here for, right?” 

Foggy groans and rolls his head into the pillow on the other side, hoping that this one might be marginally less painful. “I thought we went over this. Matt, you know to me you’re just my friend, nothing more and nothing less.” 

“I know, Foggy. That’s what I just said,” Matt replies, and when Foggy’s feverish brain finally manages to make sense of that comment, he wonders whether it’s just his high temperature making him feel this warm.

xxx 

At least, not as bad in comparison as he feels when the _second_ formal letter this semester lands on his desk (The court invitation or whatever it is going to be, hasn’t arrived yet. Because why get something over with when dragging it out is so much more fun.) By now he also suspects Matt has some sort of dog genes in his lineage _somewhere_ , because once again he seems to pick up on Foggy’s emotional state the minute he steps into the room, back from Spanish class. 

“What’s wrong?”

“Okay, _how_ do you…oh, never mind,” Foggy says, feeling too tired to get worked up about yet another strange habit of Matt Murdock’s. “Awesome news, fantastic news, I’m so sorry.” 

“Does it have something to do with the new, mandatory, slave preparatory classes being held?” 

“What…okay, how do you know that? I literally _just_ got the letter,” Foggy says, shaking the sheet of paper for emphasis. It does indeed state that, starting with this year, all registered slave study aids at Columbia will have to attend a total of three mass lectures to ensure ‘basic behavioural standards at lectures’, ‘basic behavioural standards on campus’ and ‘basic behavioural standards at dorms’, the latter of which Foggy can already imagining Matt sarcastically terming a lecture on ‘AKA how to avoid making noise when getting fucked or beaten after 10pm’.

“I overheard students talking about it,” Matt’s lips are a thin line. “You will have to tell me the exact dates, though.” 

“Is there no way around this?” Foggy grimaces. “I mean, it will look weird when the two of us are attending, right?”

“It’s not going to be the two of us,” Matt shakes his head, tone dry. “It’s slaves-only. I’m expecting it will be a gala event, obviously.”

“Fuck,” Foggy mutters, expressing what they’re both thinking. “At this rate, we’ll have to get you a more comfortable public collar after all, huh? _Fuck_ ,” he repeats again, for emphasis, and also because he doesn’t think there really is a more appropriate word. 

(They go shopping the next weekend, riding public transit to a mall far, far away from campus. After the disaster of a collar he got Matt with and knowing about the sometimes peculiar attitudes to tactile sensations his roommate exhibits, this time Foggy insists on having Matt feel every single one of them. Most of them are also expensive models, lined with silk, or rabbit fur, or high-tech synthetic fabrics designed to cause absolutely no irritation. But the way Matt’s posture tenses and then sags when Foggy puts them on him, he suspects, has absolutely nothing to do with them being comfortable or not.) 

xxx

“You leaving? Do you want me to guide you there?” 

“No, I think I should be able to manage on my own. See you later tonight,” 

“Liar,” Foggy retorts automatically, and is pleased to get at least a small twitching of the lips out of Matt. His slave has exchanged the tighter, more stylish clothes he usually likes to wear around campus for more comfortable, grey and worn sports wear – “I don’t want to stand out” – is the curt explanation he’s given Foggy (even though he hadn’t asked) but Foggy wonders whether the different clothing is also a way for Matt to mentally separate the role he now again has to fulfill from his everyday pretend life. The new collar they have bought is tucked securely into his hoodie pocket to be put on at the last minute when there will hopefully no free people they know around to recognize him. 

“Come back right after, okay? I’ll order from that Chinese place you like,” Foggy says, and the small, lop-sided smile Matt gives him in return means that he has understood that what Foggy was _really_ saying is _please come straight back after and don’t do anything stupid,_ but Matt replies “Yes, Foggy,” anyway, and it’s Foggy’s one small consolation that he can at least be fairly sure now that Matt says that out of his own free will. 

It doesn’t help the knot in Foggy’s stomach much as he sees Matt setting off.

_To be continued..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whelp, it takes a while, but here you go :p Some warm 'n fuzzies to make up for the last chapter, at least^^° Hope you enjoyed and if you read, please review! :D


	16. Rising

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, thanks to everyone who is still here and still reading - I got some really great reviews that pushed me to finish this story again after some *heavy* editing, so hope you enjoy! Updates should be coming somewhat more frequently now :)

Matt doesn’t have much trouble finding the auditorium where the slave lecture is being held.

 

He supposes he wouldn’t even need his heightened senses, because the stench of fear from the attendees is reeking to high heaven.

 

The lecture has been scheduled in the old, barely-used gym, five minutes down the block off-campus, where by now only the less prestigious sports clubs hold their training. It suits Matt, mostly because it decreases the chance of running into anyone he knows. Five minutes before it’s supposed to start, he ducks around a corner of the building, listens intently for any heartbeats close-by and then grits his teeth and puts the black, too-snug-for-his-liking collar on, inserting the chip from his red one into the new holding space. They already chose the widest they could, but collars for males, evidently, are not made to be whimsical or playful.

 

When Matt rounds the corner of the building again to join the throng of waiting slaves outside, he can feel his cheeks burning and he turns his hood up and face down, not wanting anyone to see him. He has discarded his collapsible cane behind some trash cans for the afternoon - the sunglasses should mark him as visually impaired to cover up anything he misses with his radar sense and that way, people might be less inclined to connect any random slave dressed in baggy grey sweats with Matt Murdock, blind star student and sharp-dressed shark of the mock trial court. 

 

And then, his head flies up and his blood freezes in his veins at the next thing he hears.

 

“Mr…Matt? Sir? Are you lost, can I hel-?”

 

He whirls around like a cat.

 

“Em?!”

 

The girl immediately stumbles backwards at his hissed address, perhaps mistaking his shock for anger, heartbeat skyrocketing. “I-I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to – please, punish me as you see f-“

 

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” Matt hurries to tell her, voice low, anxious to get her to calm down and stop attracting attention from any bystanders. “Calm down. Please.”

 

“Th-thank you.”  She stammers and swallows. Matt can sense she already seems even worse for wear than the last time they met her. Thinner, too thin and jumpy and…

 

Matt’s fist clenches.

 

And used.

 

Now she swallows, her head turned down again, cowering. “Uh, um. Are you lost? Only this is a slave…a slave lecture, so…” 

 

Matt grits his teeth. Swallows. But there’s really no point delaying the inevitable.

 

“Em. I’m not lost. I’m attending.”

 

Her head rises up again, slowly. “You’re… _what_?”

 

And if Matt could, he would be looking back at her right now, but his mind’s eye (and Foggy’s remembered description) supply what he would be seeing anyway.

 

Em, staring at him, green eyes wide and uncomprehending, right until they’d snag on the collar around his neck, accompanied by the little gasp she makes, and then one hand comes up, pointing,

 

“W-wait, is…is that…? But why would you, you’re not-”

 

Matt reacts in a split second.

 

“Don’t point. Keep it _quiet_ ,” he hisses immediately, already moving into her space to block her pointing hand from the sight of anyone else. In reaction, she flinches into the corner like a frightened animal, cowering in instinctive fear from his height and decisive movement, a small wail escaping her mouth as she brings her thin arms up to cover her head, and Matt relents, just a little.

 

“Hey. Hey, it’s okay,” he whispers, again, cursing his over-reacting and reaching out to pull one of her arms down, trying hard to let his grip feel firm, but gentle. Around him, he tries to gage whether any other slaves are noticing their display, and he hopes they won’t. He hasn’t engaged with any other slaves for a while now, not as one of them, but he prays that they are the sort that mind their own business.

 

“I…but why…?” Em stammers, and Matt tries to speak as quietly as possible for any normal human to still understand him. This is going to be the first time he has to tell someone.

 

“I’m…I’m not a free person.” The words taste like bile.  “I’m a slave. I belong to Foggy.” That last sentence came easier. He swallows again. “Em. You need to swear that you won’t tell.”

 

And now Matt wishes his own voice sounded firmer during that last plea.

 

Em blinks but then nods, then seems to realize her mistake and adds. “I – yes. I mean, yes. I promise. Please let me go,” she pleads, weakly tugging at her wrist he still holds. Matt releases his grip. She shrinks back a little, but makes no move to flee.

 

“So you’re…but you weren’t wearing…” she stammers, outwardly still reeling from Matt having passed over from one mental category into another. Matt wonders whether she was perhaps born a slave, a state that means the categories ‘owned’ and ‘free’ can seem a lot more cemented in a person’s worldview than in others’.

 

“My usual collar is hidden. Foggy does not approve of slavery, so he doesn’t make me wear a visible one. I try to slide under the radar,” he explains quickly, aware that they have precious few moments before they’ll be called in, probably.   

 

“I…right. Right,” Em swallows, trying to wrap her head around the concept. “That’s why…why you asked him to let me fetch myself a blanket,” she says wonderingly, “because you _know_ -“

 

“Yes. I know. Believe me, I _know_ ,” Matt says grimly, and then a man steps out of the gym and starts barking orders at them and they rejoin the throng of the other slaves, filing into the building in line.

 

Xxx

 

The gymnasium is already half-filled when they enter, though there aren’t any chairs set up – instead there’s old vaulting boxes and wooden crates set up and people – slaves – are already kneeling behind some of them. No pads, of course. Matt can hear almost a hundred of nervously beating hearts, the atmosphere charged and tense. He turns toward a crate further off to the side, head still cast down to avoid attracting attention and kneels down behind it. Em follows him, sinking down behind the box next to him and he isn’t surprised. He’s shown her kindness. It would be more surprising if she _wasn’t_ following him like a scared animal.

 

He guesses they aren’t allowed to talk, though, so all he can do is turn his head towards her and give her a small nod before he settles behind his crate and tries to attract as little attention as possible.

 

When the lecture starts, it starts as expected. Proper behaviour on campus apparently entails not leaving your dorm unless ordered, not sitting down in the cafeteria and not taking up space on the lawn of the campus – but they’re not legally binding rules but really suggestions, so Matt feels free to roll his eyes behind the privacy of his sunglasses, letting the usual rhetoric of condescending and dehumanizing language roll over him without trying to listen too much.

 

He knows he would get angry again if he did.

 

Instead, he tunes in to the various slaves in the auditorium – about 400, he’d guess – ( _guess_ , hah, Stick would have his head for using that word, so Matt distracts himself by listening properly and comes up with 407 heartbeats beside his own, and another one for the lecturer).   

 

He is, therefore, as startled as anyone when Em manages to knock down her writing pad from her desk, flinching along with the rest of people around her.

 

Unfortunately, it seems to not have gone unnoticed.

 

“What? What was that?” The lecturer interrupts himself, looking around. “I _said_ , who was that?” the teacher repeats the words, and everyone in the gym, including Matt, tenses up. Matt can hear the heart of Em racing like a jackrabbit, and her whole under-nourished body is trembling with fear.

 

“I said, who! Was! That!” the lecturer shouts the words now, hitting the podium with the manual three times. “Each and any of you _know_ the punishment for lying as a slave.”

 

Everyone else has their head cast down, too afraid to speak, probably desperately wondering whether the consequences of blabbing or remaining quiet would be worse, while the heat of the teacher’s probably reddened face increases each second.

 

“ _I asked you a question!_ If I don’t get a guilty party, I will have you _all_ whipped-!”

 

Matt grits his teeth. Then he draws a breath and opens his mouth.

 

“It was me.”

 

Heads turn. Next to Matt, Em gasps, but he ignores it.

 

“What?! Who? Stand up!” The lecturer barks and Matt rises. He stands straighter since he got given to Foggy, he notices, even if he is not looking forward to what comes next. It makes sense, he tries to think. He’d get whipped either way, probably, and of all the ragged, under-fed and trembling people in this place he is the one in the best condition to take it.

 

The only one whose owner would bend over backwards for them and try to do everything they can to help them recover afterwards. 

 

“You. Right. Come onto the stage.” The lecturer snarls, and Matt complies, walking down the hall with his heart pounding, but his face is set. He’s walking carefully, touching a few of the desks as he goes past, hoping that he gives the impression of somebody not completely blind but visually impaired – it would help to explain the sunglasses which he is grateful are hiding his face along with the hoodie.

 

“Right. Bend over. Hands on your knees,” the teacher snaps as he makes his way upwards, thankfully apparently not very interested in Matt’s attire or pecularities.

 

Matt only hesitates a second before doing so. He isn’t sure whether he should be afraid, exactly – surely the teacher shouldn’t be able to do anything more than hurt him physically, and Matt can take that. He is in better physical shape than he has been in years. The only thing that reasonably should worry him is if this had any consequences for Foggy, or for his stay at Columbia. But surely they couldn’t expel him just for reportedly dropping a _writing pad_?

 

He bends forward, just a little lower than strictly necessary to get his hands on his knees, in the hope that this will appease the lecturer. In his experience, people who punish slaves in a grandiose fashion like this for petty mistakes appreciate extra grovelling.

 

“ _Interrupting_ class like that. I don’t know why anyone ever thought you were worth bringing here.”

 

Matt stays silent. He _has_ gotten used to replying when spoken to, even initiating conversations and talking back, but he still knows the protocol as a slave. No talking whatsoever unless directly ordered to.

 

“Fine, then. Let’s get this over with.”

 

Matt’s eyes fly open as the next thing that happens is the lecturer violently grabbing a pen, yanking Matt’s hoodie up to expose his back, and then the sharp stench of sharpie hits his nose just as the tip of it hits his skin.

 

 _What_ -?

 

For a moment, he is too surprised to even pay attention where exactly the pen goes as it smears across his back, the scrawl of the lecturer large and irregular across his vertebrae and kidneys.

 

“There.” The man steps back, sounding disdainful as he puts the cap back onto the pen. Matt’s back is tingling where the ink is now drying and seeping into his skin. _Branded_ , flashes across his mind, not quite silenced by the voice that goes _nonsense, if this were a brand you’d be screaming,_ and then he can already hear the lecturer stepping away from him, back to his stand, and scribbling something else on paper.

 

“Here.” He rips the page from whatever he’s scrawled it in, folds it, and Matt’s still so dazed he barely can sense it coming before the lecturer whips around and slaps the folded paper across his face.

 

“Take this. Give it to your owner to read and sign. And now straighten up, pull your shirt back down, return to your seat and don’t disturb the lesson again.”

 

Matt slowly uprights himself, not quite making a show of fumbling to grasp the paper in the lecturer’s hand, pulls down his hoodie (even though it still feels like the letters, whatever they are, are now burning into his skin) and tries to leave the stage as quickly as he dares to move. He can already feel the rage starting to simmer inside himself, its familiar fire beginning to burn through the shock and the shame, and his hand has clenched around the paper he is supposed to give to Foggy, crushing it in the middle.

 

“I’m…I’m so _sorry_ ,” is what Em whispers when he sinks to his knees behind his crate again, but he shakes his head.

 

“It’s okay.” He grits his teeth. “What…what does it say?”

 

When she only blinks, he prompts, “The words on my back.”

 

“Oh, I’m so sorry, I, I couldn’t look –“

 

“It’s alright. Doesn’t matter, really,” he interrupts her again, trying to calm her as well as himself. “Foggy can tell me later. Let’s try and make it through this lecture without giving him any more excuses,” he says darkly and can hear her nod next to him, Em at least managing to keep her composure well enough. 

 

Later on, he is walking back to the dorm, letter firmly shoved into his messenger bag. The black collar is gone, too, buried deep beneath everything crunched on top of it. Matt can feel his fists clenching around the cane he picked up again, muscles yearning to turn the stick into a weapon. He tries to banish the sensation from his mind as he arrives back at the dorm, calming himself for a moment before he enters. 

 

xxx

 

“Foggy? I’m back.”

 

“Yeah? How did it go?” Matt supposes something has to be showing on his face because Foggy immediately adds, “…oh. That badly, huh?”

 

“I got a letter. From the lecturer, for interrupting class.”

 

“Oh fuck. What kind of letter?” Foggy’s voice is a mixture of concern and dread, and Matt hands the paper over.

 

“I don’t know,” he lies. “He wouldn’t tell me.”

 

Matt knows by now what the letter says. He supposes the lecturer took pleasure in the thought of him being terrified because he would have to deliver the note to Foggy without knowing its contents and being twice as scared sick because of it. Matt had, pretend-absently, run his fingers over it back at his seat, though, figured its contents, and concluded they were survivable. Not that he was looking forward to giving them to Foggy, though. There is the crumple of the paper being unfolded again and Foggy standing still as his eyes are likely darting across the page, until there is a gasp and -

 

“He wants me to _whip you_?” Foggy, bless his heart, somehow still sounds incredulous at what any other slave owner by now would know as standard protocol.

 

“It is a fairly common punishment.” Matt shrugs. “I’ll survive.”

 

“Like _hell_ are you gonna-!” Foggy starts protesting but then catches himself. “Wait, what does that mean? ‘See back for details’?” 

 

Matt hears Foggy turning the letter over, sounding confused and he supposes that scene could even be funny if the rage wasn’t still burning so hot.

 

Well. Actually, with Foggy here, there is actually a small part of him that apparently considers this still a _little_ bit funny. Matt stops the edges of his mouth from twitching because he is pretty sure Foggy won’t find this remotely comical, but he clears his throat anyway.

 

“Foggy. Stop. He didn’t mean the back of the _letter_.”

Foggy wants to say something, but before he can, Matt turns around and crosses his arms in front of his torso, lifting his hoodie halfway and baring the skin of his lower back.

 

“…dude. What the fuck,” is all Foggy manages after a second and Matt drops the hoodie again. “He _wrote_ on you?”

 

Matt doesn’t say anything, because what do you reply to that.

 

“It…didn’t hurt?” he tries, at last. “What does it say?”

 

“It says ‘fifteen lashes. Hard.’,” Foggy replies, tonelessly. “That guy is sick.”

 

Matt can feel his eye brows drawing together. Fifteen lashes weren’t the most he had ever received but that would still hurt quite a bit.

 

He doesn’t know whether Foggy giving him them will make it better or worse.

 

“That is…a bit,” he manages, keeping his voice even with effort. “But if you’re careful, you can spread them out –”

 

“Matt, are you _insane_?” Foggy asks, incredulously. “I’m _not_ going to whip you.” He roughly straightens the paper and slams it on the desk instead, grasping a pen to scrawl as furiously across it as the lecturer had across Matt’s back. “There. First account of bearing false witness, I guess. Lawyer career already off to a great start.”  

 

“The next slave lecture is next week,” Matt points out. “He will likely check. Make an example out of me,” he adds, cynicism dripping from his words. “You could get in trouble for not ‘disciplining’ me.”

 

“Seriously? What an _asshole_ ,” Foggy curses under his breath. “But, wait.” He reaches out to grab Matt’s arm. “Guy doesn’t know about this very special skill set I was famous for in High School.”  He turns his head and favours Matt with what sounds like a very broad grin. “I’m going to make you _bleed_ , Matty.”

 

_To be continued..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There, hope you liked! More coming soonish, and if you read, please review :D


	17. 'Cut' Man

“What did _you_ interrupt class with, anyway? Breathing?” Foggy asks later as they are walking back to their dorm from a lecture together.

“Kevin’s slave. Em.” Matt says, grimly. “She knocked something down, sounded like a writing pad. I said it had been me.”

“So the lecturer thought that a blind person had knocked something down and they _still_ ….” Foggy grits his teeth. “ _Assholes_.”

(Matt thinks there is also a ‘Martyr’ and maybe even a ‘idiot hero’ in there as well, but they’ve had this discussion, and Foggy knows by now which battles aren’t worth fighting.)

Right now, Matt is very aware that his back is still unscathed and he can move as fluidly as ever, even though the next lecture is in a week. Foggy hasn’t shared his plans yet with him, but, somehow, Matt finds he can’t worry altogether too much. It’s a curious side-effect of being with Foggy that makes him worry…less, he finds. 

(And besides - he is far more worried about Em…)

 

xxx

 

“10-4-1964! I _mean_ the clumsy ass from last time! _Down here!_ ” the lecturer barks his number the next week and Matt slowly rises and walks very stiffly down the aisle toward the teacher.

“I hope your owner did his homework,” the lecturer greets him as he ascends slowly the three stairs to the small teaching stage. “Have you brought the signed letter?”

“Yes, sir,” Matt says, voice carefully level as he holds out the paper that Foggy signed as acknowledged in a furious scrawl. (Matt had perhaps enjoyed running his fingertips over that signature afterwards a bit too much.)

“Right.” There is a rustling of paper as the lecturer unfolds the letter, looks at it and then tosses it onto his desk. “Then bend over. Ass to the audience. Legs straight, hands on your knees.”

Matt tries not to look too nervous as he does. The lecturer strides around him, apparently not in a great hurry. He addresses the auditorium instead.

“Alright. Now, any of you who might have escaped punishment like this before, I’m going to show you what disobedience like that looks a week later. _Here_ ,” he calls out, and then roughly yanks Matt’s hoodie up, exposing his back to their audience again, and Matt’s cry of pain mingles with a few gasps of the other slaves in the front rows. Young ones, Matt assumes.

“Yes, looks painful, doesn’t it? And not all of your owners will be so kind to let you treat it afterwards, either,” the lecturer drawls. “I assume he didn’t want you to ruin any of the shirts. Get back to your place, boy,” he adds to Matt – right before his flat hand lands with a wet smack on Matt’s back. “And do it _quietly,_ ” he snaps, just as Matt yells out.

Matt gets back to his seat next to Em, who smells suspiciously of salt water.

“I’m so _sorry_ ,” she whispers. “I never meant for this to happen.”

“It’s not your fault,” Matt whispers back, equally quietly as he sits down, gingerly and stiff. “All that matters to me is that you kept your promise. _Thank_ _you_ ,” he says and means every syllable. She nods briefly, furiously.

“Of course,” she breathes. “If there is anything I can – I can –”

“Don’t let them break you,” Matt replies to the question hanging in the air. “And don’t worry about me,” he gives her the slightest smile. “It’s not as bad as it looks.”

 

He knows it won’t convince her, but it’s all he can afford.

 

Xxx

 

“Did they buy it?”

“Hook, line and sinker,” Matt announces with a quiet smile as he strides through their dorm room, Foggy’s tension-fuelled heartbeat having guided him back for the last ten minutes.

“Hah! I _knew_ that extracurricular would pay off!”

“I concede the majesty of your drama club skills,” Matt replies, evenly. “But now please help me take it off, or the itching will drive me insane.”

“Philistine. No appreciation for art,” Foggy says, but he rises and steps around Matt, lifting the back of his hoodie and beginning to peel off the bandage. “Uh, gross. I know we went for realism, but that fake blood has by now started to congeal like real stuff. And smells about as appetizing.”

“Yes, Foggy. I’m the one who had to walk around with it,” Matt says dryly, and Foggy snorts.  

(Foggy still remembers putting it on earlier this morning. He had returned with the necessary shopping the previous day, the bag full of liquid latex, brushes and a make-up palette meant for Halloween heavy in his hand. And then watched youtube-tutorials with headphones long after Matt had already dozed off in the night, somehow relaxed in the presence of the person who was technically supposed to whip him bloody in the morning.)

“Necessary for complete deception, though,” Foggy says as he pulls the rest of the extremely large compress off that covers the majority of Matt’s lower back (but deliberately not all of it). It’s stained both with fake and with real (pig’s) blood (it never hurt to have friends in the agricultural department), and it looked apparently real and disgusting enough that it convinced the lecturer of the severity of the wounds beneath.

 

(“Alright,” Foggy had said only six hours ago, making sure his voice sounded confident. “Let’s do this.”

Matt had tilted his head at him, as if considering. “Foggy,” he’d said, “If you’re worried this might not work, we _could_ -“

“Yeah, _no_ ,” Foggy had cut him off. “I’m not going to let this fucker turn us into what he wants us to be.”

And Matt had smiled. “Alright,” he’d said. “How do you want me, then?”

(And oh, how Foggy had had to concentrate on the most disgusting images from the tutorials at this point.)

“Get a towel, put it on the bed and lie down on it. I’ll need access to your lower back from about the middle down.”

 

Foggy had sat on the edge of the bed and laid out the make-up tools as Matt had gotten the towel out and slipped off his shirt, lying down on his front, head cushioned sideways on his arms, managing to avoid bumping into Foggy or the make-up stuff with his usual uncanny accuracy around their dorm. Foggy had shifted down to sit next to his hips, noticing in passing how Matt hadn’t actually bothered to remove his collar for this, the band of leather a thin red line across the back of his neck.

“Okay,” he’d said (proud how he thought he actually sounded fairly even) “I’ll start with wiping down your skin with soap to make it easier for the latex to stick.”

“I appreciate the commentary, but you don’t have to describe every step, Foggy. I trust you and I trust you know what you’re doing.”

Matt’s voice had almost sounded amused, but it still took more effort than usual to shoot back with “I’ll comment as much as I want to, Murdock, otherwise how will you know to be properly impressed with this work of art I’m gonna be producing here,” although it at least let Matt chuckle like this was one of their average Saturdays.

After that, Foggy had mostly let his mouth run on autopilot, talking about some of their classmates, his views on last week’s episode of _Agents of F.I.E.L.D_ (a series about a secret agency investigating mostly agriculture-based mutants and meta-humans in a rural setting in Kansas) and his plans for lunch tomorrow, trying to ignore how his hands were touching his best friend like they hadn’t for almost two years since the day he’d gotten him.

There were differences, of course – the back that Foggy was working on now was relaxed under his ministrations, not stiff with pain and tense with wariness like it had been back then. Also, Foggy couldn’t help noticing how Matt had _definitely_ grown stronger, shoulders noticeably broader and muscle filling in the spaces that had looked malnourished and scrawny when he’d been given to Foggy.

At this, Foggy had almost felt a surge of irrational pride rearing up within him, that this was what _he_ had accomplished, this was _his_ work of a beautiful and trusting slave on his bed, and then crushed that feeling immediately with extreme disgust and prejudice. _This is what this system does to you_ , he’d reminded himself. _Don’t give in_.

“You gotta let me in on your workout regime some day, buddy,” he’d said instead, trying to sound light-hearted and impressed. “That’s some serious muscle you’ve put on.”

Matt had let out an amused huff. “Gotta tell you right now, it involves a whole lot of hitting the same thing over and over again and not much in the way of intellectual stimulation.”

“Urgh. Why can’t our bodies be made to put on muscle while watching Netflix? That too much to ask?” Foggy had sighed mournfully while Matt had snorted. After that, Foggy had tried to focus more on the still faintly visible scars on Matt’s back from previous whipping injuries and thought about how he was technically supposed to add _more_ to them and that had definitely helped to suppress any feelings of possessiveness, instead replacing them with much easier to handle emotions, like white-hot anger for all pro-slavery assholes in this world. Maybe he _should_ work out with Matt if only to lower his blood pressure.

Matt’s nose had twitched as the latex milk had been opened and again when the paints and fake blood liquids had come out – Foggy had supposed not for the first time that his slave’s sense of smell must be quite strong, so he’d offered a sympathetic apology for the olfactory qualities of the procedure.

“Considering the alternative, I think I’m quite well-off, thank you,” Matt had said, dryly, “I just didn’t think it’d take this long.”

“Like I said, creating art here, buddy,” Foggy had replied, and carefully continued to paint pain on his friend’s skin, adding hurt and indignity and breaches of trust with every stroke of the brush. Hands steady with a soul raging, their modus operandi from day one.

As he'd painted, he'd also wondered - _had_ Matt really thought Foggy would be capable of hurting him, when suggesting they do that whipping punishment in earnest? There is a part of him that hopes that this is less of an indicator of Matt still thinking of him as a potentially violent owner and more of an indicator of Matt simply being the kind of person that suspects he is _always_ going to wind up hurt anyway and therefore willingly throws himself into it. Maybe even if he had never been a slave, Foggy would like to think.   

Then he'd sighed and gotten up. 

“Alright, lie there for ten minutes to give the colours some time to dry, then I’ll put the bandage on. Just hope the pig's blood hasn’t congealed yet. And I’m glad I helped out in a butchery because if I hadn’t, this would be seriously gross.”

“An artist needs to be committed to his masterpiece,” Matt had said, solemnly, and then uprighted himself on his elbows, head tracking Foggy through the room where he was rummaging for the tube of pig blood. “How do I look?”

Foggy had turned his head for a moment, gauging the scene from a few metres distance – his slave, prone and half naked with a back that’s been mutilated like it’s 1000 B.C, but still _smiling_ at him, like a friend – “like my worst nightmare,” Foggy had replied with a bit of a swallow, and then added with a lop-sided smile, “but we’ll fool them like no tomorrow.”)    

As it is now, six hours after applying the latex, Matt’s skin underneath the bandage is sweaty and sticky, and still has the (very, very faint) last bits of sharpie colour on it that even extensive scrubbing in the shower hadn’t gotten off (and oh, how Matt had tried), but it’s also smooth and unhurt and _whole_ , and the fact that Matt can _snicker_ as Foggy lightly flicks him on that spot, telling him ‘Alright, Murdock, now go grab a shower and wash that gunk off so we can go out and celebrate another week of sticking it to the system!’ almost lets Matt forget his anger and the memory of Em’s fear.

 

xxx

 

They almost settle into…a normalcy after that, Foggy thinks you could call it. The third slave lecture passes without much happening, besides Matt being tight-lipped as usual about it.

(Matt doesn’t tell Foggy about how he’d after the lecture let Em in on the fact that most of the restrictions the lecturer had placed on them were effectively legally bullshit; the university, as a public institution, can’t forbid slaves from going anywhere - like walking or sitting on the campus lawns for instance - where normal citizens would be allowed to go. It’s a safeguard in the legal system to ensure that slave owners can send their slaves for errands anywhere they please, so it’s the most grotesque of anti-discrimination laws that ensures slaves possessing the necessary permits have to be served in stores and be allowed access to all places citizens can go – the only person able to legally prevent them from doing so is their owner. Em had looked at him, her voice in slight awe.

“You…how do you _know_ all that?”

Matt had shrugged. “I’m Foggy’s study-aid. He’s interested in slavery law, so even if I weren’t interested in the subject myself it’d be my job to learn about details like that. And even if _Foggy_ weren’t interested, it’s fairly surprising what you can learn whenever your owner puts a law textbook in your hand and isn’t looking over your shoulder half of the time. They do grow laxer the longer they own you,” he’d pointed out.

“I…that could be true, yeah,” Em had said, voice sounding slightly less shaky than two weeks ago. The third slave lecture had ended ahead of schedule, so they were able to take their time to return to their owners (or at least that was a consideration for Em – Foggy, of course, wouldn’t punish him if Matt spontaneously decided to go on a city expedition to find New York’s best kebap and return at 2am (though he’d likely complain for Matt not getting one for him), a privilege Matt was always sharply aware of, but even more so in her company.

He had already managed to exchange his visible collar for the invisible one behind the gym, listening to Em’s faint ‘Oh’ at the sight of a slave so easily taking off what for her had to be a something almost physically part of a person. Matt had found out by now that while she hadn’t been born into slavery, her father (apparently a college professor?) and older sister had died in an accident when she was two and her mother had then died of an illness when she was three – but since she was so young and therefore still malleable, she’d been groomed to be a slave from the start, albeit one specifically slated to become a study aid since demands for them were rising. (Probably a result of her father having been a college professor, Matt supposed. Slave merchants were always a big believer in ‘genetics’ and ‘breeding pedigree’, hence why his price as the son of a boxer had been so ridiculously low he’d been so surprised to end up as a study-aid still).

That said, it explained why Em had been so shell-shocked at learning that Matt even as a slave was capable to pass as a free person, interacting easily with everyone else in their group project, even Kevin, adding arguments of value to any discussion and cutting down even free people with superior arguments of his own. But it did speak for her general intelligence and resilience that she seemed to have mostly overcome that shock now and managed to talk with Matt despite it.

“I’ve had a couple more years experience than you,” Matt had said, gently, “Owners’ vigilance around you almost always slips with time.”      

“Ah, yeah, you’d know,” Em said with what sounded almost like a bit of a hopeful smile in her voice. “I’m glad you’re better, too.”

“It’s in your owner’s interest to let you heal up quickly,” Matt had deflected, before adding, “Plus, Foggy has no upper-body strength for whipping to speak of.”

Em had burst out in an almost nervous giggle then, which Matt had counted as a success – making fun of Foggy in front of others is not his favourite thing, but if it teaches Em that owners aren’t gods, that they have flaws that can give you an edge, if he can take at least even a _bit_ of her fear away, then even Foggy would probably consider this worth it.)

 

xxx

 

The trial about Foggy’s assault comes and goes, earning them a fine and a lecture from Foggy’s birthmother (who at least seems pleased by the way Matt conducted himself during the process, saying he might turn out to be a fine investment at some point in the future. Matt and Foggy both studiously avoid telling her that Matt will likely turn out to have been the biggest money sink in the Nelson family history.) The group project from hell with Kevin continues, with Matt being inexplicably somehow both more twitchy and protective of Em in Kevin’s presence, even though he almost always hides it in some frankly terrifying pro-slavery rhetoric, and while Foggy is glad that Em at least doesn’t seem to get _worse_ during the semester, both of them can feel their powerless rage at her treatment and none of them quite know how to deal with it, either. Foggy is fairly sure that he is far better at repressing and compartmentalizing this stuff than Matt is, he just isn’t quite sure whether that makes him a worse person. 

Foggy also doesn’t know whether this was how his mother ever thought it would go when she bought him a blind house slave to make his stay at university easier. Like, he knows Matt does his best. He _is_ trained as a house slave, so he cooks on the weekends, and he irons and makes beds, and he washes Foggy’s clothes (well, washed them. In their first semester. Once. And then Foggy’s whites were all very fetching pinks, and he gently persuaded Matt that he’d rather do their laundry on his own. And as soon as he will be able to forget Matt’s broken whisper of ‘Please don’t sell me’ when that happened afterwards, Foggy thinks that maybe one day, that memory will even be funny.) and he cleans their room as best as he can.

They don’t sit on top of each other every day –  Matt goes out to the gym, or Mass, or walkabout every other week or so, and, later on in their third semester, a devil wearing Prada sits behind Foggy in corporate law and whispers ‘Hey’, and he spends about a third of the following nights at hers.

xxx

 

One day, when Matt comes out of the shower, he is too blissed out to pay attention to much, having released his habitual focus on his senses for a few minutes of relaxation. He finds the towel to wrap around his waist by touch and memory, his ‘world of fire’ no longer sharp-edged but a blurry, non-helpful mess of sounds around him. But it’s fine. He doesn’t have to focus here, in their dorm. He’s with Foggy. He’s safe. Safe enough, even, to walk around with his collar on display, which is hanging loosely around his throat as he opens the door of their bathroom, planning to grab the fresh clothes from his bed – when suddenly, the other door in the room also opens and a wave of perfume smashes into him just as a voice cuts in right after, “Hey Foggy! I think we’re about due for some _study-time_ …?”

And then there’s a cry of “Matt! _SHIRT_!” from Foggy, leaping up from his chair, Matt’s heart jumping into his throat as he rears backwards, for a second horribly disoriented, which isn’t helped by Foggy throwing a shirt into his _face_ as he staggers back into the bathroom, Foggy slamming the door shut in his face just as Marci’s poking her head forward and sounds like she’s frowning.

“What the hell, guys?”

“It’s uh, it’s, uh, just…Matt. He wasn’t…decent. He’s a bit…shy. Yeah,” Foggy says, cautiously, as Marci is walking into the room.

“Uh, yeah, I am. Sorry,” Matt says, now poking out of the bathroom. He has scrambled into the T-shirt (it’s one of Foggy’s, so it’s ridiculously large on him, and an old training pants from the basket with the unfolded laundry, but his collar is well-hidden now and that’s all that matters).

“Are you,” Marci says, non-plussed. “well, from what _I_ saw, I don’t think you’ve got reason to be, but hey,” she cuts herself off. “You don’t have to worry about me up and ravishing you anyway, Murdock. I’m here for Foggy-bear only.”

“Oh,” Matt manages.

Then there’s a pause, where he slowly turns his head toward his owner.

“…Wait. Did she just say _Foggy-bear?”_

“Get _dressed_ , take your books and go to the library,” Foggy manages without actually separating his teeth as Matt’s lips start to dangerously twitch, threatening to erupt into a serious giggle fit as Foggy snaps a “and that’s not an _option_!” at him after that. But Matt is still grinning as he works to quickly obey, and Marci raises an eyebrow when he’s changed and ready to leave them not five minutes later, stating “Wow. I wish my roommate would listen that well.”

“Yeah, me and Foggy have an arrangement that works pretty decently,” Matt states cheerfully in passing, figuring it’s more the adrenaline high that he’s riding now, but he’ll enjoy it as long as it lasts.

(It lasts for about another quarter of an hour is what he figures out later, when he is actually sitting in the library as ordered (well, not technically ordered. Foggy has no experience whatsoever and the order was only to _go_ to the library, not _stay_ there, but since Matt is in a good mood and had pretty much been planning to do this anyway, he doesn’t mind obeying the spirit as well as the letter of the command, and therefore looks for a place to sit and try to concentrate on torts again).

It would be nice if he hadn’t been ordered out of the room so abruptly, since his hair is still slightly damp which doesn’t mix well with the cool air in here, but hey, he figures, if _these_ are his current problems, his life is actually going exceptionally well, considering. He also gets a text after about half an hour, mostly stating ‘Non-optional order rescinded, go anywhere you want – call me ‘Foggy-bear’ again and consider yourself permanently exiled’. Matt snorts and, hair dry by now, stays at the library for another hour anyway.)

He senses Em coming in later, sitting down at a table with a pile of books and evidently writing some sort of paper for Kevin, who, thankfully, is nowhere to be sensed. She smells bruised but not bleeding, but apparently still able to work with concentration, judging by the way she types and leafs through the books with determination and precision. Matt hopes it’s an indicator that Kevin is using her for more cerebral work by now at least, illegally letting her write his papers and understands that for them to be good, she needs at least adequate food and sleep. Matt makes a decision and gets up.

“Hey,” he whispers quietly as he sits down next to her, placing a water bottle and a snack from his bag on her desk. “You have a few minutes?”

She flinches for a moment as he invades her space, but closes her mouth before she can make a sound. They’re in a fairly secluded part of the library – Matt isn’t surprised, both of them instinctively always gravitating to spaces with less people around – so they should be able to get away with a whispered conversation without attracting the ire of other students or librarians.

“I…yes,” she whispers back. “Is that...are those for me?” she asks, probably looking at the food and drink he brought.

“Yeah. They never feed you enough, do they?” Matt asks, the question rhetoric and matter-of-fact. She silently shakes her head – Matt thinks that after the slave lectures she’s assuming that he is mostly only vision-impaired, which makes for a convenient explanation of how he’d have been able to recognize her walking past his desk in the library.

“Thank you,” she says and it sounds honest. “Are you…better now?” she asks, tone still terribly guilty.

“Ah, yes. Actually, Foggy used some trickery. I was never hurt that badly,” Matt admits. Over the past few weeks during the group project Em hasn’t had let _anything_ slip pertaining to his true status, so he figures she can keep a secret.

“ _No_ ,” she breathes instead. “Really? My god, he _must_ be a dream owner.” 

“He is,” Matt agrees. “I’m sorry about Kevin,” he adds more quietly. “I’ve had owners like him.”

“And you survived. That gives me hope,” Em says, and her voice is equal parts brittle and cynic. Then she sighs. “It’s actually gotten a bit better. Since you kept reminding him to keep me efficient, there’s more food and sleep now.” She briefly pinches the skin above her nose. “Except now I also have to write his papers,” she sighs. “Does your owner make you do his, too?”

“No,” Matt replies. “I occasionally did it for my last owner, though. It’s usually a good thing. Makes you more valuable.” (And he really doesn’t know how to feel about this – he can’t talk about things like this with Foggy, because anything reminding his owner how Matt is really his property first and anything else second makes Foggy incredibly uncomfortable, so Matt usually avoids any conversational topics that have to do with his own thoughts about his status. Talking like this with Em, who _understands,_ is both…freeing and utterly depressing at the same time.)

“That would be nice,” Em sighs. “At least he isn’t so…focused on me anymore. Now he is chasing some girl called Jessica. And we’re spending the next semester abroad. Maybe it’ll at least be warmer there,” she says, quietly.

“Abroad?” Matt asks. “Where are you going?” He feels a bit apprehensive that he won’t be able to check in on Em any more, but then again, he knows that if anything were to happen to her _here_ he would be just as powerless as when she is overseas.

“Barcelona, Spain. I think it were the last few papers that I wrote for him that got him that scholarship to go there.”

“Do you speak Spanish?” Matt asks. “Foggy let me take some classes. Maybe Kevin will let you, too? It’s useful if you can become his translator – lets you guide some conversations, sometimes.”

Em huffs. “I know one important phrase, at least. _Viva la revolución_ , right?” she says, and it’s gallows humour with barely any fighting spirit behind it, but Matt knows that in some circumstances, that’s all you have.

 

_To be continued..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here you go! :) Hope you like, if you read, please review (always interested to hear what you liked or any questions), and Happy early Easter! :D


	18. Happiness

Their fourth semester starts off strong. The group project from hell has finished and, incredibly, their grades are still good.

(Em is abroad with Kevin now, and, while Matt sometimes thinks of her with his stomach screwing up with worry, he knows that you simply _can’t_ let yourself start caring about other slaves too much, because what inevitably happens to them is what lets other slaves that cared about them walk onto the middle of highways at night. Neither him nor Foggy ever developed a relationship with Kevin that would make it plausible to shoot him an email about how it’s going and casually inquire about Em, so Matt mostly just hits harder against sandsacks at night and hopes she makes it back next semester.) 

Marci is still swanning in and out of their dorm room and so far doesn’t suspect a thing about Matt – is, in fact, fun to be around and if she does give Matt accidental orders, Foggy usually manages to deflect them with a casual, “Matt, you know you don’t have to do that – yeah, she’s a girl, but she’s not your boss. Let chivalry be dead for once,” that doesn’t sound too out of place.

(In fact, Foggy had even found Matt at some point not long after having sent him to the library for some private time with Marci, and had made awkward, fragmented small-talk for an entire fifteen minutes until Matt had interrupted him, asking what the hell was up - had Marci somehow gravely wounded him in a private place and now he needed help? - and Foggy had gritted his teeth and managed, 

"I'm...sorry for giving you an official order. That was...probably not that cool." 

Matt had studied him for a moment. Foggy had sounded contrite and awkward, and it once again struck Matt how incredibly odd this entire situation was - his owner - his _owner_ \- standing in front of him, by the position of his head not even quite comfortable looking at his face, and _apologizing_. For sending him to the _library_. 

Matt huffed out a laugh. 

"Foggy, it's...fine." 

"No, it isn't." 

"Um. Yes. It is. What are you gonna do, give me another official order not to contradict you?" Matt had asked, a small smile tugging at his lips as Foggy's head had finally snapped back up at his teasing tone, wide-eyed by the stretch of his ocular muscles, mouth slightly open. 

"What - but - Matt, that isn't _supposed_ to be funny, here-"

"I know," Matt had said, easy tone surprising even himself. "But making incredibly not funny things funny is the one thing we're good at, so." 

(Humour, he knows, is the one place systems like the one they're in can't reach. Their first moment of connection was a single, stupid joke, after all. And, by now, even Foggy using his ultimate power over him, had felt less demeaning and more... _amusing_ he thinks with slight wonder, simply because he felt so sure that nothing bad could ever come from it...) 

"So yeah," he says, "I thought it was funny."   

"But - Matt, I did that because I was _horny_." 

"That made it funnier." 

"You're impossible," Foggy runs a hand over his face. "I feel bad enough as it is. Please, just accept the stupid apology." 

"And would that be an official order, sir?"

"Oh for fuck's sake, Matt.")

However, it’s not long after the term has started that Foggy starts catching _Matt_ having trouble speaking and/or breathing whenever a certain Greek girl is around, so Foggy watches this for two weeks until he corners his roommate and tells him that if he doesn’t take his collar off for the night and goes over to talk to her, Foggy _will_ cuff and leash him and drag him to her himself.

(Actually, when he does that, Matt looks into his direction so utterly shell-shocked that Foggy for a moment curses himself and then immediately verbally scrambles backwards.

“No! No, shit, Matt, that was a joke – no, you know, let’s go back to our dorm. Maybe this is a conversation we should have in private,” he says, gently pulling at Matt’s arm and Matt latches on automatically, trusting, so Foggy hopes it’s not that bad yet when he guides them back to their room, away from the tables in the cafeteria where they had been sitting while Matt had been busy making his equivalent of heart eyes at the mentioned girl. Foggy doesn’t even know _how_ he knew where she was.

“Alright, sit down,” he says as he closes the door and watches Matt walk and perch uneasily on the edge of his bed. Foggy is glad he knows that Matt by now refuses orders he doesn’t like, so the fact that he does sit hopefully indicates that he isn’t so uncomfortable that he’d rather up and run than have this conversation. Which, Foggy realizes more and more, is something that is likely an absolute minefield considering what Matt has probably been through.

But still, they need to have this talk, so he steels himself and takes a breath.

“Okay. We can stop this if it makes you feel uncomfortable. But I think we need to talk about…” he swallows. “Do you or do you not want to have sex with people?” 

He can hear his own heart beating in his chest like he’s just been running a marathon (well, okay, no. If he had just run a marathon, Foggy would be dead. But his heart is still at least pumping like he’s just run from his dorm to the lecture hall at the other end of the campus, which he knows he _can_ do, and when he does, it feels like this) and apparently Matt can sense that, too, or maybe he heard the tremble in Foggy’s words, because when he speaks it’s in his ‘calm-irrationally-scared-owner-down’-voice, and Foggy is a bit embarrassed that this is apparently a thing enough that he can already recognize Matt’s signature tone for it. 

“Foggy,” he says, swallowing, and then he pauses, taking his glasses off and rubbing the bridge of his nose, before ‘looking’ at Foggy again, uncovered and unfocused brown eyes slightly off to the left of his face. Foggy doesn’t say anything, but he feels that this might mean something, and he doesn’t know how to react. “Foggy, I know you’re not going to use me against my will,” Matt says, and Foggy can hear how he’s deliberately keeping his voice calm, as if he needs to hear this as much as Foggy does. “And yes, I was expecting you would at first – before I knew you. And I’m grateful you never did,” he says, and his lips twitch in a smile as he holds a hand up when Foggy opens his mouth to automatically protest, that this isn’t something anyone should need to be grateful for, when it’s basic human decency to _not_ rape people, but Matt’s smile says he already knows that this is exactly what Foggy wants to say, and it’s okay. He knows.

Foggy’s mouth snaps shut again.

“I’m not scared of you, Foggy,” Matt says, still that same calm tone, even though this is actually another risk for him – Foggy guesses that this phrase alone could be an invitation for an owner to feel like he is being slighted, how a lack of fear would usually be interpreted as a lack of respect, but Matt doesn’t look like he’s scared of this at all. In retrospect, Foggy considers that Matt has often shown himself to be insanely bold and fearless in his trust in Foggy, and he’s always amazed anew at the bravery.

“You looked pretty deer-in-the-headlights when I made that stupid joke about gift-wrapping you and giving you to her, though,” he points out, swallowing. “Matt, I would _never_ -“

“No,” Matt says quickly, “I know you wouldn’t, Foggy. I wasn’t _scared_ when you said that, I was _surprised_ that you would…want me to do that. Or allow me to,” he licks his lips, briefly, obviously trying to figure out how to word the next sentence, gaze unfocussed, but serious. “I know you’re not using me, but the idea that you wouldn’t mind anybody _else_ doing it instead was…unexpected.”

“Well, I don’t want anybody to _use_ you,” Foggy tries, the phrasing feeling horrible and wrong in his mouth. “I want…I want you to feel like you can do whatever you want with your body, including getting your rocks off. Um,” He grimaces, _very_ glad that Matt can’t see him. “Not just by yourself but with a partner, too.”

Matt blinks at him. “Uh. You mean you _don’t_ mind me…taking care of myself?”

“Wait, what?” Foggy croaks. “Matt, I’ve owned you for more than a year, now. _Please_ don’t tell me you haven’t –“

Matt swallows. “Well, no.”

When Foggy continues gawking instead of saying something, he quickly adds, “It’s fine, Foggy. Just, uh, a little bit of a strain…sometimes. But I didn’t mind _that_ much – don’t forget, I grew up in a Catholic orphanage,” he tries to joke, but it comes out awkwardly.  

“Jesus,” Foggy finally mutters. “Matt, I didn’t know that. I’d have assumed you’ve been, well,” Foggy waves, desperate to be somewhere else right now, “having fun.”

Oh. No. _Matt_ is actually looking embarrassed now. But he doesn’t look scared which is an achievement. His slave shuffles a bit on the bed before he replies. “Um. Most owners don’t want you _taking care_ of yourself.” His expressions darkens. “It keeps you on a hair trigger and almost glad when they use you, which is what makes them feel more impressive when they do. I didn’t…I didn’t know…what you expected of me,” he says, and then tilts his head toward Foggy in what has to be the most heart-breaking way possible. “I didn’t want to…um, make things awkward.”

“Oh well I'm sure glad _that_ didn't happen," Foggy mutters under his breath, before adding "Jesus, _Matt_ ," more loudly. His friend must have the self-denial of a saint, that’s for sure. “I don’t…” he starts off, then swallows. He absolutely has to get this right, and he doesn’t want to scare Matt. Unfortunately, Matt also seems to somehow have a knack for knowing when Foggy is telling the truth, so Foggy can’t say he _doesn’t_ want to have sex with Matt, because he _does_. And every day that Matt acts more like a free person, smiles at Foggy, uncoerced and carefree, just makes it worse.

“I’m all for you doing whatever you want. With _whomever_ you want,” he stresses, while Matt’s eye brows continue to rise. “And as for me, I’d never, _ever_ have sex with someone who isn’t very enthusiastically willing to,” he says instead, hoping it makes it clear enough. When Matt actually cracks a smile at his serious tone, though, his answer is slightly surprising.

“I know, Foggy.”

“You…do?”

Matt gives a small shrug. “You might not remember it, but there was a night where you were very, very drunk. There were even people propositioning you to loan me out for the night. You told them to go fuck themselves because you wouldn’t force me to do anything.”

“…I did?” Foggy asks weakly, because he doesn’t remember this night at all.  

“Yup. And I knew that was true because you were absolutely pissed and couldn’t tell your arse from your ears, but you still knew that,” Matt says, and now his smile is actually turning into a grin, and Foggy is torn between sputtering in protest, and wanting to draw Matt into a hug, because there is so much fondness and trust radiating here that he doesn’t know how to deal with it.

“Right!” he says instead, “Yeah, yeah, I wouldn’t. But that doesn’t mean at all that you have to go without, uh,” Foggy says. “Because that would be cruel. I mean, uh, you don’t have to – I mean, do you…do you _want_ to? Not with me, obviously. But just. In general?” Foggy manages and only halfway wants to stick his head in the oven, so that is an improvement. 

“Eloquent, councillor,” Matt says, grin just a little bit wry now, which Foggy takes as a cue for an exasperated huff. Someone should give him some credit, he thinks sourly, because he feels like he’s on a pogo stick on a mine field. But it is undeniably progress that Matt still doesn’t look that tense, or scared, like he’s thinking one wrong answer is getting him fucked at the first opportunity. When Foggy remains silent, his grin vanishes again, face turning slightly softer.

“…yes. I think I’d like that. I remember sex feeling good – before.”

 _Before_. Matt’s shorthand for ‘before I got collared and sold on my 18 th birthday’, and Foggy never enquires about anything from that timespan that Matt doesn’t volunteer information about by himself.

In the present, Foggy tries not to think too hard or memorize this image of Matt sitting on his bed, smiling, saying _I remember sex feeling good_.

“Cool. Cool cool cool. That’s…that’s good. That they didn’t ruin that,” Foggy offers.

“I don’t think I’d want to have sex if it means someone else finding out I’m a slave, though,” Matt says, pulling a face. “There’s…too much potential for that to go wrong.”

“Well, don’t tell them. It’s worked so far.”

“I’m informed clothes generally come off during sex. I don’t think I could hide this without a shirt,” Matt says, dryly, tracing the line of the collar beneath the fabric covering his chest. It really is invisible each time until his fingers point it out, but Foggy supposes Matt is aware of its exact position every single second, because he finds it without fault each time.  

“Well, excuse yourself to the bathroom before they grope you or rip your clothes off. Just stuff it into your pocket, go back out there and…have fun. Put it on again in the morning or before you leave and none will be the wiser!”

“You…really? You’ve thought about this,” Matt says, wonderingly. “And you honestly wouldn’t mind? Someone else getting to have me when you…“ now he’s the one groping for words, like he still can’t quite wrap his head around the concept.

“No, Matt,” Foggy says patiently. “I don’t think of it like that, I think of it as you having fun, which is what it should be, and I’m always fine with that. Just use protection so we can all spare ourselves a second visit at the doctor’s office, and don’t get anyone pregnant, and you’re fine.”

Matt flinches at the idea of a repeat STD test, and nods quickly.

“Alright.” Foggy breathes a sigh of relief. “Cool. Do we also need a permit? Is there some sort of thing like a sex permit?” he asks, feeling slightly horrified again.  

“…no,” Matt says, slowly. “Being used as a fucktoy is sort of in the job description. You don’t need a permit to let your slaves walk around your house or beat them, and you don’t need one for yourself or other people to use them. Which this would be, legally,” Matt pulls a face, clearly not happy at thinking about this like that, either. “The only permit you’d need is if you wanted to breed me with someone.”

Foggy moans something which sounds like ‘I don’t want to live on this planet any more’ before he says, louder, “Well, I don’t. No breeding involved. For anyone. Which is why I’m going to place some more emphasis on the condom issue. You do know how to use them, right?” He says, standing up to rifle around in his nightstand to dig out some foil squares and putting them in Matt’s hand.

Matt’s fingers close around them and he hesitates, briefly, fingers feeling out the circular ridge inside the packaging, lips briefly thinning. Foggy becomes abruptly aware that his dialogue just now was a bit reminiscent of the opening lines in a porn movie, that for someone who could be forced to have sex with Foggy in a heart beat this entire conversation could have been incredibly scary and unsettling, and if Matt says ‘no’ now, all he’d do is give Foggy a perfect, innocent opening to –

But then Matt swallows and says, “No, Foggy,” and then adds, “The nuns weren’t that big on teaching us about protection,” with a small, entirely unworried smile, and Foggy feels like a huge weight has just fallen off his chest.

“Well,” he replies, “Alright, let me go raid the fruit section of the cafeteria, and I’ll be right back…”

(Half an hour later, shortly after Foggy arrived with a bunch of very specific yellow fruit and the announcement of “Alright. Let’s go… _bananas_ ,” they’re already ten minutes into a very entertaining practice section involving various items, including a waterbottle, an unfortunate stuffed penguin and a cucumber, down about twenty terrible innuendo-containing puns, and Matt is currently betting him he can get one of those things onto the next helpless item using only his teeth, and Foggy laughs and laughs, and thinks yeah, this could go alright.)

The first morning a very-obviously dishevelled Matt comes back to their dorm, grinning like a loon, Foggy does congratulate himself (although he may regret it just a _little_ in the following months as the Matt Murdock Dating Adventures continue – even if Matt never tells any of his partners about his status and none of his relationships consequently ever last long.)

The only exception to this is Thurgood Marshall, on whom Matt develops a (what Foggy terms) man-crush  - “It’s not a _crush_ , Foggy,” Matt protests, “Our love is cerebral and pure.” – and subsequently keeps quoting him at Foggy at every available opportunity throughout their fourth semester. At some point Foggy actually threatens to make use of the muzzle gag Matt came with, which, sadly, by now utterly fails to intimidate Matt who proceeds to quote Thurgood some more.

The only thing that mildly worries Foggy is that Matt seems to have found a particular fondness for the quote ‘ _You do what you think is right and let the law catch up_ ,’ sometimes sitting with his Braille book open and just staring into the distance as his fingers play over the same line over and over again, but, since Matt does not as of yet seem to be planning to overthrow the entire slavery system by planting a bomb underneath parliament, Foggy mostly tries to be happy that Matt has people he looks up to and that there have always been people who fought the slavery system on legal grounds, like they soon will, too.

When it’s time for Matt’s annual health exam again, Foggy actually calls up a vet, and asks for a letter of health to be mailed to the bureau without Matt having to go again. Before his friend can celebrate, though, Foggy tells him he is still going to have Matt’s teeth checked at the dentist, and promises that when Matt is free the first thing he’ll do is drag him to the dermatologist to get checked for melanoma (‘You’re Irish, Matt, you burn when standing in front of a painting of a sun’) and because Foggy is also there at the dentist's, threatening lawsuits to each and everyone who touches Matt beyond what’s medically absolutely necessary, Matt bears it, with gritted teeth.

But despite Matt working hard to be as independent as he can and trying to take on as big a workload of their chores as he is able, these days, Foggy finds himself often quite busy when it comes to helping Matt getting all the course materials in accessible formats, each semester having to take a trip with him to the Dean’s office to register him for classes and exams, spending about half an hour extra trying to convince Matt when he wants to go out with him, guiding him to new places he needs to get to, washing all their clothes and buying all their groceries, yelling at the bathroom door that Matt has been in there for a hundred minutes, he needs a shower, too, we are both gonna be _late_ , Murdock, and-!

When he can ignore the fucked-up system they’re living in, Foggy has actually never been happier in his life.  

This works actually incredibly well until their fifth semester when Em returns.

_To be continued..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, there you go! It's my birthday, so I thought I'd celebrate it Hobbit-style, which means, *I* give presents to everyone else! (which, because of my birthday mood is also a huge pile of fluff. Let drama resume next chapter) :p Hope you like, and if you read, please review! :D


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